ABSTRACT
The secular empire of the World Bank group of international financial institutions is analysed in some detail with regard to efforts to exploit and gain control of one of Mexico's largest pools of strategic productive resources and wealth. This chapter concentrates on the World Bank's imperial strategy with regards to Mexico's oil resources and associated petrochemicals industry. An indispensable step in this analysis is to elaborate a 'situational frame' that allows to delineate the relations of domination and subordination that exist at this level. A review of the World Bank's major operations in Mexico demonstrates in concrete form the operational principles of US imperialism synthesized above. The impact of the World Bank and related institutions on the structure and intra-institutional dynamics of Mexico's economy were extended and deepened throughout the 1980s with the growth of the national debt and the servicing of this debt by the government.
