Biden must push back on Mexican President AMLO’s energy imperialism

At last, the U.S. is pushing back on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s energy imperialism.

His plan to buy out a controlling stake in a major refinery near Houston hit a last-minute delay late last month, when the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States said it would review the deal.

The story first broke on May 24, when López Obrador announced to an astonished public in Mexico and Houston that Mexico’s Pemex had bought Shell Oil Co.’s controlling interest in the huge Deer Park refinery that Shell had operated for decades in a joint venture with Pemex. The president insinuated that regulatory approval would be but a formality and that the deal would be closed in the fourth quarter.