Mexico is vital to United States security. Since the U.S. is protected by the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, its southern border represents the most vulnerable part of its perimeter. Preventing Mexico and the islands of the Caribbean from allying with foreign enemies has always been vital to U.S. strategy.

This is why recent elections south of the Rio Grande are so concerning.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico on July 1 in a landslide victory. He received 53 percent of the vote, the first time a presidential candidate has received an absolute majority since 1988. He will be sworn into office for a six-year term in December.

López Obrador’s coalition includes his Movement for National Regeneration, the far-left Labor Party and the evangelical Social Encounter Party. These three parties won 307 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 69 out of 128 seats in the Senate, close to the two-thirds majority needed to pass changes to the Constitution of Mexico. Thus, López Obrador may become Mexico’s strongest leader in decades.

Mexican historian Enrique Krauze has hailed López Obrador as a “tropical messiah” whose charisma can save Mexico. Others are less optimistic. They see the left-wing president as a socialist strongman akin to late Cuban President Fidel Castro and late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Like these leaders, López Obrador came to power in an electoral campaign full of anti-American rhetoric.

Where will López Obrador lead Mexico? Many analysts say his policies on economics, criminal justice and immigration stand to pit his nation against the United States and set it on a path toward a Venezuela-style meltdown. And the Bible strongly indicates that such a scenario will occur in the near future.

Anti-American Coalition

In the U.S., López Obrador is called the Bernie Sanders of Mexico. The 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City campaigns against what he calls the “mafia of the powerful” on behalf of “good and honest people.” What are his policies? In the past, he has called for Mexican oil businesses to be taken over by the government and for the country to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. In recent months, however, he has backed away from these proposals and instead called for money for youth programs, pensions for the elderly, and an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure. He also wants to double the minimum wage in the Mexico-U.S. border area without raising taxes.

Yet, while López Obrador presents himself as a center-left politician railing against political corruption, key officials within his Movement for National Regeneration (morena) are far-left revolutionaries.

Yeidckol Polevnsky Gurwitz, the general secretary of morena, speaks openly of her admiration for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. She acknowledges that her party seeks to incorporate Mexico in the Bolivarian Revolution, a political revolution in Venezuela that seeks to build an anti-American coalition of nations based on nationalism and socialism.

Héctor Díaz Polanco, president of the morena Commission of Honesty and Justice, is another official enamored with Venezuela’s revolution. “Let’s say it straight: The integration of Mexico in the Bolivarian Revolution would, in my opinion, make a big difference in the situation we have now,” he said last October in a video broadcast by Cadena Telesur. “We need to expand that revolution.”

The largest political party in Mexico is openly endorsing Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship. This means that López Obrador’s administration will likely forge alliances with anti-American regimes in Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Such an alliance would mandate distant relations with the United States and closer relationships with U.S. rivals, such as China, Russia and the European Union.

For decades, the Trumpet and its parent magazine, the Plain Truth, have forecast that the deterioration of trade relations between the U.S. and Mexico, its third-largest trading partner after the European Union and China. The May 1962 Plain Truth warned that “the United States is going to be left out in the cold as two gigantic trade blocs, Europe and Latin America, mesh together and begin calling the shots in world commerce.”

Dozens of biblical verses promise blessings to Israel for obedience to God’s law and warn of curses for disobedience. Plain Truth editor in chief Herbert W. Armstrong explained in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy (free upon request) that these verses apply primarily to the end-time descendants of the ancient nation of Israel, and these primarily include the U.S. and Britain.

In one prophecy, God likens the U.S. to a hedged vineyard, protected on all sides. It has been hedged—north, south, east and west—by nonthreatening nations and the two largest oceans on Earth. But, because of the sins of the people, God warns that He will tear down this hedge.

“I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down” (Isaiah 5:5).

In another prophecy, God says the United States will be besieged by foreign enemies: “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand. … And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Deuteronomy 28:49, 52).

The first breach in America’s hedge occurred in 1959 when Communist revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overran Cuba. Now, a new government in Mexico wants to follow Castro’s and Chávez’s examples. The hedge on America’s border is being destroyed, and its “high and fenced walls” are coming down.

No foreign power can besiege the U.S. without economic and military superiority in Latin America. This is why America’s historic rivals, from French Emperor Napoleon iii to German Kaiser Wilhelm ii to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, have sought to pit Mexico against the U.S. Over 40 percent of all goods imported into the U.S. pass through the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico would be the best staging ground from which foreign enemies could invade. Efforts to align Mexico with anti-American nations will weaken the U.S. and hasten a time when it is besieged by foreign powers.

Drug Cartel Violence

International drug-trafficking networks known as cartels employ half a million people in Mexico. These dangerous cartels rake in between $20 billion and $30 billion annually, making them wealthy enough to field their own armies. Roughly 15,000 trained fighters work for the cartels, which are equipped with drones, grenades, land mines, machine guns and even armored vehicles and submarines.

Over 200,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since former President Felipe Calderón declared war on the cartels in 2006. Cartel violence is directly responsible for roughly 40 percent of these homicides, and the situation is growing worse. Mexico is on track to pass 30,000 homicides this year, which would surpass last year’s record high of 29,168 murders. Cartel operatives are even killing government officials: 97 political officials and 48 political candidates have been murdered just since last September.

President-elect López Obrador has promised to tackle cartel violence by rewriting the rules of the drug war and granting amnesty to drug traffickers. His strategy is nicknamed “Hugs Not Bullets.”

“We are going to change this rotten, corrupt regime of injustices and privileges, and we are going to promote development,” he said at a rally last April. “I can summarize it in one sentence: work, good salaries and hugs, not bullets. The people of Sinaloa are not bad by nature. It is that many have been forced to take the path of antisocial behavior; many have lost their future—especially the young.”

The president-elect has also indicated that he will consider legalizing drugs. “All topics should be analyzed,” he said at a campaign event in May. “Health is affected more by alcohol and tobacco than other drugs, and prohibiting these drugs creates more violence. Why not talk about it?”

In addition to amnesty and legalization, López Obrador wants to negotiate with cartel bosses. “We’ll invite Pope Francis, the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, representatives of international organizations … so that, with local experts and with the victims and families of the victims, we elaborate a joint plan to attain peace in this country,” he said at the same event.

This “Hugs Not Bullets” strategy represents a ceasefire at best.

Mexico’s homicide rate may come down if the government stops fighting drug traffickers, but cartel bosses will still control half the country, and will face less resistance, enabling them to expand their power further. And if López Obrador’s socialist policies cause an economic collapse like the one that has devastated Venezuela, his ceasefire will leave the cartels basically in charge of the country.

The primary reason these criminal cartels are so wildly successful is that 27 million Americans are addicted to illegal psychiatric drugs. That means U.S. drug users are fueling a multibillion-dollar industry that causes over 21,000 overdose deaths and 12,000 drug-related homicides per year.

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Hosea foretold that the sins of modern-day descendants of ancient Israel (the peoples of America and Britain) would cause their land to be plagued with violence. “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away” (Hosea 4:1-3).

This passage describes cause and effect. Because there is “no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land,” people swear, lie, kill, steal and commit adultery. The resulting immorality rips apart families, leading millions of hopeless youth to turn to sins of their own, including gang warfare and drugs.

The end result is that “blood toucheth blood.” Currently, the bloodiest suffering is in Mexico. But if López Obrador’s government stops fighting the cartels, drug traffickers will have a free hand to ply their nation-destroying products throughout the Americas.

Immigration Crisis

Since Mexican citizens living in the U.S. send about $30 billion home to Mexico each year, Mexican presidential candidates have a long history of supporting illegal immigration into their neighbor to the north. Yet López Obrador’s rhetoric has been more inflammatory than his predecessors.

He published a book in 2016 titled Listen Up, Trump that contains snippets from his speeches. In one, he says, “Trump and his advisers speak of the Mexicans the way Hitler and the Nazis referred to the Jews, just before undertaking the infamous persecution and the abominable extermination.”

In another campaign speech, López Obrador promised to defend “the migrants of the world who, by necessity, have to leave their villages to seek life in the United States; it is a human right that we will defend.” And in another, he said he would refuse to do America’s “dirty work” by deporting Guatemalan migrants passing through Mexico en route to America.

Such rhetoric is stirring up anti-American sentiments that have lain dormant since the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force on January 1, 1994.

Officials in Mexico’s new government no longer want to help the United States fight drug cartels and deport immigrants. Instead, they want to mimic the economic policies of Cuba and Venezuela, even though the latter’s failed socialist revolution has created an economic crisis and prompted 10 percent of the country’s population to leave in search of better living conditions. López Obrador’s policies on economics, criminal justice and immigration stand to create a perfect storm that could soon transform Mexico into the next Venezuela, and send untold numbers of people fleeing north into the United States.

In regard to the United States, Isaiah 1:7 prophesies, “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”

This is another prophecy about a curse that results because Americans have disobeyed God’s law. Illegal immigrants are streaming into the U.S. in droves, and clearly many Mexican officials want it this way. This is leading to a time where America’s cities are “overthrown by strangers.”

Yet there is hope in this dire situation.

The fact that the Bible foretells these societal conditions is proof that it is divinely inspired. And after prophesying the downfall of the nations of Israel, the Prophet Isaiah foretold of a time when people would repent of their sins and be forgiven. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land” (Isaiah 1:18-19).

To find the true source of intractable problems, look for intractable causes. The serious issues facing the U.S. and Mexico are the result of sins committed in public and in private by individuals. The solution is not populism, socialism and amnesty. These ideas never bring about good governance and prosperity. Only repentance from wrong living can begin to turn things around.

This may sound impossible, but it is coming—soon! And the solution will be a revolutionary new government, a government that zeroes in on the only solution to people’s problems: resisting and overcoming their sins against God’s law, which defines the right way to live. This government will offer real forgiveness, real prosperity, real justice, real change and real hope. And the head of that government will be the real Messiah, Jesus Christ.