Loan to Mexico for 1994 crisis prevented problems at the border: Clinton

The $20 billion loan that the United States gave Mexico to mitigate the “December error,” as the 1994 economic crisis is known, prevented further damage to the Mexican economy and averted a migration problem in the United States, said Bill Clinton, former president of the neighboring nation to the north.

Participating in the Mexico 21st Century meeting of the Telmex-Telcel Foundation, the former president of the United States considered that the decision to request the Congress of his country to authorize a line of credit for 20 billion dollars so that the Mexican government could guarantee its creditors compliance with their financial commitments was a good decision.

He noted that at that time, 79 percent of Americans, according to polls, did not agree with that action, which was compounded by the poor results of the midterm elections and the nation’s financial problems.

Clinton said that a few days after Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León assumed office as head of the Executive Branch in Mexico, he asked her for help, since everyone was against the peso, no one had faith in Mexico and he had no resources.

“The United States could fix it by believing in Mexico and its future, by giving it a loan so that it could meet and honor its financial obligations so that the peso would not collapse,” he said.

He said he decided to support Mexico in resolving the crisis known globally as the “Tequila effect” through a loan of 20 billion dollars.

This was despite the fact that Republican leaders in Congress did not agree, but Clinton believed that the loan would prevent the migratory flow to the United States from increasing and also a further deterioration of the economic situation of its neighbor.

The 42nd President of the United States explained that when he took up the issue, he thought that “Mexico has a limited future, if we do not support them, that is, to be unlimited, we will trust Zedillo and we will do it.”

“It was one of the best decisions I ever made,” he said, after commenting that after granting the loan to Mexico, the situation stabilized within a few weeks, while the Mexican government repaid the loan three years ahead of schedule with 700 million in interest, “which was less than had been expected.”

Clinton commented that Zedillo Ponce de León became a candidate and then president of the country, after the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio and despite the fact that he had no political ambitions, being intelligent and reserved.

The former US president also said that he does not like “ultranationalism and the ‘we can do it’ approach.”