The Reality of Economic Control in Mexico and Indigenous America: Who Really Owns the Country?

    In much of the Indigenous Americas — including Mexico — economic power often sits in the hands of foreign corporations rather than the people who live on the land. Factories, energy companies, mines, and major retail chains are frequently owned by outside nations, leaving local communities with little control over the profits extracted from their territories.

Many Mexicans point out a painful truth:
If the companies that dominate your economy are not owned by your own people, you do not fully control your future.

Foreign Corporate Ownership and Economic Vulnerability

When foreign-owned businesses dominate essential industries, they can:

• raise prices

• set wages

• dictate labour conditions

• extract natural resources

• move profits out of the country

This creates a system where the national GDP may rise on paper, but the everyday living conditions for Indigenous and working-class people remain stagnant.

Economic growth without sovereignty is not progress — it is dependence.

Government vs. The People

Around the world, many governments prioritize alliance-building, investment deals, or international approval rather than the wellbeing of their citizens. In Mexico and across Indigenous America, this tension is especially sharp.

People ask:

• Is the government working for the nation… or for foreign powers?

• Why are resources sold off to companies based outside the country?

• Why are leaders aligning with foreign political interests that do not reflect the will of the population?

This disconnect fuels distrust, especially when leaders make public gestures that symbolize loyalty to outside nations. The message the public receives is simple:
“Our leaders are aligning with others before they align with us.”

Indigenous America Has a Long History of Overthrowing Corrupt Systems

In the south, Indigenous nations and local communities have a long tradition of challenging governments that fail to protect land, people, and sovereignty. Uprisings, movements, and reforms are part of a historical cycle where the people correct a government that has strayed too far from its responsibility.

This is not chaos — it is a demonstration of political agency.

Why People Feel Their Leaders Have “Sold Out”

When presidents prioritize foreign partnerships over:

• resource protections

• Indigenous land rights

• national economic independence

• public opinion

people feel abandoned.

They see natural wealth leaving the country, multinational corporations expanding, and leaders forming alliances that benefit outsiders far more than citizens.

In these moments, many feel that the government is no longer a representative institution — but an administrator of foreign interests.

The Call for True Sovereignty

More and more people believe sovereignty means:

• locally owned companies

• community-driven economies

• Indigenous governance models

• protection of natural resources

• leaders accountable to the population

• resisting foreign economic domination

Some are willing to fight for these changes — politically, socially, and economically.

Indigenous America has always been a region where people refuse to be governed by forces that do not serve them. That tradition continues today.