In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Mexican President Felipe Calderón recommends government-enforced redistribution of wealth as the key to preventing the global economic crisis from “becoming a major catastrophe.”

During an interview conducted on September 24 by Carla A. Hills, the co-chairman of the CFR’s board of directors, Calderón reported that acceptance of this central plank of the socialist economic platform helped his nation successfully avoid an absolute financial crash.

“We created specific programs to save jobs in export-oriented industries. We reached an agreement with the unions and the companies in the sense that as long the worker accept[ed] to earn one-third less on his salary, and the company accept[ed] to pay one-third of his salary, the government — the federal government accepted to pay the other third part of his salary, and in that way, we save more than half a million jobs right in the middle of the crisis in export-oriented industries,” the soon-to-be former president said. “We increased government transfer to the poorest and established a temporary jobs program. In doing so, we created another half a million temporary works for the people,” he added.

Wagging an accusing finger at his neighbor to the north, Calderon pointed to his own financial sector’s acceptance of additional regulation as another ingredient in the recipe for a healthy economy. Said Calderón:

Another important factor behind Mexico’s stability is our financial sector. While in the U.S. the crisis started in the financial markets and in the banking sectors, Mexico, the financial sector was not part of the problem, but part of the solution. Thanks to the improvements in regulations, Mexican banks have a capitalization index of 16 percent, almost double that the recommendation of Basel, and well above the countries such as China, England or even the U.S.

One arena where a restrictive regulatory scheme boosted Mexico’s economy was trade. Calderón praised his country’s willingness to manipulate trade rules in order to increase Mexico’s international posture, power, and influence. A big step toward that end was Mexico’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

“A few months ago, Mexico joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, negotiations. This will give Mexican trade the biggest boost since NAFTA came into effect,” Calderón explained.

As The New American has reported, in June President Barack Obama and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk announced that Canada and Mexico have been invited to join the secret negotiations aimed at establishing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In an announcement published Monday on the USTR website, Kirk wrote:

We are delighted to invite Mexico, our neighbor and second largest export market, to join the TPP negotiations. Mexico’s interest in the TPP reflects its recognition that the TPP presents the most promising pathway to boosting trade across the Asia Pacific and to encouraging regional trade integration. We look forward to continuing consultations with the Congress and domestic stakeholders as we move forward.

At the time of the announcement following the G20 Leading Economies Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, Calderón described the the TPP as “one of the free trade initiatives that’s most ambitious in the world” and one that would “foster integration of the Asia Pacific region, one of the regions with the greatest dynamism in the world.”

Integration is a word that is painful to the ears of constitutionalists and those unwilling to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a committee of globalists who are unelected by the American people and unaccountable to them.

Later in his address to the influential elitists at the CFR, Calderón blamed the “unlimited access” to weapons in the United States for the violence in Mexico. He called the lack of sufficient regulation in the United States on the private ownership of guns a “key factor in the current strength of criminal organizations.” Said Calderón:

You can see a clear correlation between the moment in which the assault weapons ban expire here in the U.S. in 2004, and that is exactly the moment in which the violence in Mexico started to grow.

And it is clear that the more weapons to have available, more violence of homicide you will have in any part of the world. You can see the same phenomenon, whether in Africa or Central America, during civil wars and other phenomenons [sic]. And that is exactly what is happening in Mexico as well. During my term, we have seized more than 150,000 guns and weapons. And more than 80 percent of them were sold in an American gun shop.

Calderón is a high priest in the global church of disarmament. In a statement made in May to the Mexican branch of the Council on Foreign Relations, he bragged that “Mexico has made important contributions to international issues such as disarmament.”

While such claims may be loathsome to Americans who treasure our belief in a God-given right to keep and bear arms — a right the Constitution declares may not be infringed — Calderón and his countrymen are still trying to use the UN and international treaties to abolish the Second Amendment and disarm the United States.

Perhaps more alarming than a foreign president calling for the seizure of American guns is a similar call from our own president.

“As President Calderón and I discussed, I am urging the Senate in the United States to ratify an inter-American treaty known as CIFTA to curb small arms trafficking that is a source of so many of the weapons used in this drug war,” said President Obama during a speech in Mexico City in April. Obama has urged the Senate to reconsider and ratify CIFTA.

CIFTA is the Spanish-language acronym for the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and other Related Items. It was adopted by the Organization of American States in 1997 and sent to the Senate by President Bill Clinton later that year.

As ABC News reports, “The treaty makes the unauthorized manufacture and exporting of firearms illegal and calls for nations in this hemisphere to establish a process for information-sharing among different countries’ law enforcement divisions to stop the smuggling of arms, to adopt strict licensing requirements, and to make firearms easier to trace.”

Tracing of firearms and ammunition is a key component of the agreement and details of the program reveal that it is no more or less than a hemispheric adaptation of the Fast and Furious scheme conducted by the Department of Justice that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

As recently as this month, Mexican representatives at the United Nations meeting on the globalists’ latest gun-grabbing plot known as the “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects,” called for regulations on the use of “nonexplosive weapons” such as knives and bows.

Finally, President Calderón reminded the CFR of his nation’s toeing of the UN’s party line calling for implementation of regulations to promote sustainable development — an all-out assault on personal property rights known as Agenda 21. Calderón held his country up as one of the nations “actively participating” in not only the furtherance of the radical green agenda, but of the creation of “international climate finance mechanisms” to accelerate the adoption of the provisions of Agenda 21.

Additionally, Calderón recommends that a country’s access to its own financial resources be tied to its government’s acceptance of “adaption and mitigation measures” as set forth by Agenda 21.

Calderón’s term as president of Mexico ends on December 1 when president-elect Enrique Peña assumes office.

Photo: Mexican President Felipe Calderon answers a questions after speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Sept. 24, 2012: AP Images