Mexico

Mr. President, señor presidente.

Dear delegates,

I convey to you the fraternal greetings of our President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

And I am honored to return to this General Assembly, which was my home for many years, to address you now as a representative of Mexico.

We are facing a change of era. Neoliberal hegemony has demonstrated its palpable failure by proposing an extractivist development model that socializes losses, privatizes profits, impoverishes people and devastates the planet.

Arms races and wars have returned to international geopolitics; environmental devastation advances; frustration and discontent manifest themselves in extremisms, in proposals that deny rights and renounce democratic values; the institutions of the international system are losing legitimacy.

The Secretary-General, António Guterres, referred to these phenomena in his remarks and said: a purgatory of polarity, of instability, which are symptoms of civilizational crises, of transitional stages in which the old does not finish dying and the new does not finish being born.

The similarities between our times and the interwar period of the last century are becoming increasingly evident. They are also worrying, because we know how that ended: terrible years in which the world's production became a conveyor belt for war, and humanity became just another input.

However, history also teaches us that in this crisis, with courage and valor, it is possible to bend the destructive course. In the interwar period of the last century, Mexico's foreign policy wrote an exceptional chapter, deploying the humanism, solidarity and respect for international law that characterize us.

Mexico took on the task of defending the value of the League of Nations, justice, self-determination, integrity and interdependence and independence, as well as the equality of its members.

With these banners, we then energetically condemned militarism, the invasions of Manchuria, Austria, Ethiopia, and the advance of fascism in Europe. And after the end of the World War, the Second World War, Mexico led the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a nuclear-weapon-free territory.

Today, as then, Mexico is committed to building emancipatory alternatives. Ours is a nation that guides its present under the banner of Mexican Humanism, a product of our millennial history and compass of our project of national transformation: the construction of a just, egalitarian and fraternal society. A moral economy that guarantees an equitable distribution of income and respect for the environment.

This is a revolution of consciousness that has made it possible, during the administration of President López Obrador, to reverse the degradation and precarization of our population's living conditions: more than 9.5 million Mexicans left poverty behind in five years, and the Gini coefficient reached its historic minimum.

Wages increased by 135%, tearing down those inflationary myths proclaimed as absolute certainties by those who seek to maintain the status quo.

Fiscal privileges were eliminated, reinforcing public coffers and curbing corruption, tax evasion and avoidance.

All these achievements have also taken place in a context of stability that has consolidated Mexico as an investment destination.

Unprecedented constitutional actions were taken to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples, guarantee equality and political participation for women, and to leave a manifest legacy of social achievements in our Constitution so that no one can take it away from future generations.

This was also reflected in our foreign policy, because Mexico is a country of migrants; no stage of the migratory cycle is foreign to us, and based on our experience, we launched the Mexican Model of Human Mobility, a proposal to manage migration comprehensively, through attention to its structural causes and regional collaboration.

The model has four pillars: first, to empower Mexican communities abroad and promote that the United States adopt full regularization for them; second, to strengthen and expand development cooperation in communities of origin and return; third, to address the political factors and economic sanctions that inhibit development and generate irregular migration; and fourth, to generate safe, orderly pathways, above all associated with labor mobility.

Let us say this loud enough to be heard far away: migration is not a problem, it is a phenomenon; it is not a crime, migrants are not criminals. The problem lies in the factors that expel them from their homes, the dangers they face when they cannot find legal pathways for mobility, and the practices that criminalize them.

From this podium, we acknowledge, as a matter of justice, the contribution of 37 million Mexicans living in the United States, who are capable and honest workers contributing around 324 billion dollars a year to its Gross Domestic Product, and who are indispensable to the economy of both countries.

We have managed to change the narrative and the conversation with the United States to focus on structural causes, and we have convened the leaders of the countries of origin in the region, in Palenque, with strategic agreements that have managed to reduce encounters at the Mexico-United States border by 66%.

And let us also say this firmly: development and stability will not be the norm of the international system if we do not guarantee the rights and inclusion of women.

As the first country of the Global South to adopt a Feminist Foreign Policy, we hosted the Third Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy, and in this declaration, the Conference recognized a series of commitments that were reflected in the Pact for the Future.

But notice this: this week, only nine women, only nine, Heads of State and Government, took this podium; nine out of 133 countries. The world cannot move forward if half its population is not included. Never again nothing about us without us, because the future will be feminist or it will not be.

Climate change, as Nicholas Stern said, is the greatest market failure of all time, and it is also the greatest global challenge, and the only way to mitigate it is through collective and simultaneous action. These actions require financing and the fulfillment of the common but differentiated responsibilities of the countries of the North.

We reiterate our commitment to the Paris Agreement; the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and the activation of synergies among the three Rio agreements, the Rio Trio.

We propose measuring and restoring the integrity of ecosystems as providers of goods and services essential to the economy, social well-being and climate stability.

We have participated in the consultative processes of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice on States' responsibility with respect to climate change.

We will continue working to achieve ratification of the Agreement on the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction and to maintain the moratorium on seabed mining.

The global security landscape, friends, is undergoing a profound transformation. We are alarmed by the growing and diverse threats to international peace and security, in particular violations of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the growing risks of nuclear war, the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.

Faced with these scenarios, we defend territorial integrity in all geographic contexts, including in Ukraine and Palestine. We advocate for a political solution and negotiations that include both parties: Russia and Ukraine.

In this regard, we applaud the initiative of Brazil and China on the formation of a peace group in New York. The war has gone on for too long and affects us all. We all lose, except the mercenaries of death, except those arms companies that profit from the pain and loss of millions of children and entire families.

Given this worrying reality, it is imperative that we redouble our efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons: their devastating effects, which cannot be contained in space or time, make them contrary to international law and to the survival of humanity.

But firearms are also a source of violence and insecurity throughout the world. Mexico suffers from the illegal flow of more than half a million weapons into its territory every year.

The arms industry needs to take responsibility for its negligence, and Mexico has taken this matter to the courts, convinced that the arms industry is a key actor both in the expansion and in the solution of this phenomenon.

Mexico knows very well that the illegal flow of weapons is the other side of the illegal flow of drugs and organized crime, particularly on our country's northern border.

Friends:

Humanity is breaking in Gaza in the face of the international community's inaction. More than 70% of the victims of this war are children and women; more than 85% of civilians have had to leave their homes; the majority of the population lacks access to food, water and electricity.

That is why Mexico requested to intervene in the case initiated by South Africa before the International Court of Justice regarding the application of the International Convention against Genocide.

And together with Chile, we referred the situation in Palestine to the International Criminal Court and submitted an amicus curiae brief to highlight the Court's jurisdiction. We reject, we reject the false dilemma between the sterile violence of terrorism and the disproportionate punishment by governments shielded by double standards.

To make the two-State solution a reality, it is essential that the resolutions of the United Nations and the opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding practices in the occupied Palestinian territory be complied with.

The institutions and rules that sustain our international system are the last line before barbarism. That is why we energetically condemn the flagrant violations by the current Government of Ecuador of the most basic norms of international coexistence, of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, with the illegal and violent assault on our Embassy in Quito on the night of April 5, the aggression against our diplomats, and the unlawful removal of a person to whom Mexico granted political asylum and who remains imprisoned and gravely ill.

We reiterate our gratitude for the widespread condemnation of this act by the international community, and we cannot forget it nor normalize it.

Friends:

We know one thing: the United Nations Security Council needs urgent reform. Mexico proposes the total elimination of the veto and, until that is achieved, at least its limitation in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Latin America and the Caribbean, our natural region, is one of our priorities, because the progress of any one of our countries is the progress of all.

And in defense of dialogue, stability and democracy, we propose the peaceful settlement of disputes; we have been guarantors in the peace process between the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army; we have already hosted two rounds of negotiations. We also sponsor dialogues between the Government of Venezuela, the Unitary Democratic Platform and the United States.

And following the principles of solidarity, self-determination and the well-being of peoples, we will remain involved in supporting Haiti in rebuilding its stability and security.

We reiterate our condemnation of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba for six decades, in violation of international law, and we call for the immediate removal of Cuba from the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Mexico, honoring the tradition of asylum in our history, offered political asylum to people whose lives, integrity and freedom were threatened; we granted refuge to tens of thousands of applicants and complementary protection, as a country that opens its doors to those who need it.

Friends:

On October 1st, we will inaugurate the administration of the first woman President in 200 years, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum.

Under her leadership, the humanist government will deepen efforts to combat poverty and inequality, placing emphasis on well-being, shared prosperity - because equality for women has already arrived - the protection of our natural heritage and respect for the environment. And as she said: she does not arrive alone, we all arrive together.

Our foreign policy will continue to deploy our highest values, drawing on our roots and our struggles: we offer hope in the face of fear, solidarity in the face of hatred, and the return of humanism in the face of devastation.

Ours is a world that offers a landscape that desolates the soul; the citizens of our peoples find little nourishment in optimism; screens reproduce every day scenes of brutal cruelty and the almost mechanical arithmetic report of the numbers of the dead.

Many are those who turn their gaze to this house, to the United Nations, and legitimately hope that within its halls, the intelligence and sensitivity of the world's leaders will make the promise of our purpose a reality, and that dialogue and diplomacy will succeed in halting the failure of reason.

And rightly so, they become frustrated upon seeing that, instead of fraternity, instead of collective defense of human dignity, instead of the application of fair standards and international law, factious and shameful geopolitical interests and double standards are imposed.

And without the slightest shame, the naked empire of force persists, which is another way of describing the obscene concentration of power in the hands of a few who benefit from the status quo, the privileged, for whom this present is profitable, the pain, misery and blood of so many, mere externalities that do not appear on their balance sheets.

The nations of the world built this house, the United Nations, to forge a different path. And we reaffirm today that, despite all its shortcomings, it is this civilizational work that deserves our commitment and sensible alternatives.

These are the foundations that the human family managed to build after the abyss of the two world wars, the tool that should ward off the risk to our survival in the face of the fire of violence and the disgrace of inequality.

Today it appears powerless, incapable in the face of the fury of barbarism, hamstrung before the evidence that its mission is thwarted with each new report of victims.

We need to sow seeds of hope, change governance and architecture, because almost eight decades on, the world, its challenges and its features no longer recognize themselves in a mirror that stubbornly insists on reflecting 1945.

We need to recover confidence in multilateralism and its institutions, in agreement, in cooperation, in the conviction that, despite our rich diversity of colors and geographies, we are brothers and sisters of the same community, of the same planet, with the same destiny.

This is what the Pact for the Future calls us to do: to renew that commitment among ourselves to overcome fear and distrust and to restore the legitimacy of this organization of which we are part.

On that path, in the construction of a just world, you will always find in Mexico a loyal companion, a committed partner, a fraternal brother.

We must seize today in order to build tomorrow, and as José Emilio Pacheco said, regarding another transformative era, 1968, he said: A world is falling apart, a world is being born. Darkness surrounds us, but the light flares. There is no hope, he said, but there is life, and everything is ours.

And along that path, I also want to bring the words of Eduardo Galeano: What if we begin to exercise the never-proclaimed right to dream? What if we rave for a little while in this millennium? Fixing our eyes beyond infamy to divine another possible world: one where justice and freedom, Siamese sisters condemned to live apart, come together again, close together, back to back. One where we will be compatriots and contemporaries of all those who have a will for beauty and a will for justice, wherever they were born, whenever they lived, without it mattering in the least the borders of the map or of time.

Thank you very much.