Building on the U.S. Partnership with Mexico: an Expert’s Analysis

Two years ago this week, Mexican-U.S. relations took a deep dive, when Mexico’s former President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled a meeting in Washington with incoming President Donald Trump during Mr. Trump’s first week in office.

The dispute centered on Mr. Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for construction of a planned wall along unfinished sections of its nearly 2,000 mile long border with its northern neighbor. The American president’s campaign promise was repeated almost immediately after he took office, prompting Pena Nieto’s cancellation. Mr. Trump also repudiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which had enhanced trade relations between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper called the Trump declaration on the wall’s construction “one of the most hostile to Mexico since the Mexican-American war of the 1840s”. Yet today, examples of public diplomacy at its best — a host of bilateral cooperative ventures between Washington and Mexico City and a proposed new trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the U.S. have clearly turned the tide.

In a talk January 23 to the Foreign Affairs Retirees of Northern Virginia at Fort Meyer (FARNOVA). retired U.S. Ambassador to Mexico E. Anthony Wayne explained that several bilateral U.S.-Mexican projects have resulted recently in a striking improvement in Mexican-U.S. relations.

A Primer on the Basics

• U.S.-Mexico ties touch more U.S. lives daily,” Ambassador Wayne explained, “than any other country. This is via trade, border connections, tourism, and family ties as well as, sadly, illicit flows. The same is true for Mexico.”
• An estimated 35 million U.S. citizens are of Mexican heritage.
• The shared border creates overlapping security, economic and environmental issues. Mexico is the second largest export market for the U.S. and its third largest trading partner.
• Lately, and especially since the inauguration last December 1 of a new Mexican President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador, government-to-government collaboration has grown immensely.

The U.S. trades over $616 billion goods and services with Mexico annually, a million dollars a minute. Every day, there are more than a million legal border crossings between these two neighboring countries.

Recent Setbacks and Opportunities

President Trump in 2017 demanded and got a prospective future cancellation of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Act. He termed it “the worst trade deal in U.S. history.” He cited an export of too many U.S. auto manufacturers’ jobs to Mexico because of cheaper wages there and growing U.S.-Canada trade disputes because of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs imposed on our northern neighbor.

However, American, Mexican and Canadian leaders on November 30th co-signed a proposed new Washington-drafted agreement designed to replace NAFTA at a hemisphere summit meeting in Buenos Aires. Its title: the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA). It was uncertain until the last moment that all three heads of government would sign the accord. It must yet be ratified by Congress and the legislatures of Canada and Mexico to take full effect.

An Agenda for Moving Ahead on Migration and U.S.-Mexico Ties

Ambassador Wayne outlined steps for fulfilling the challenges to both Mexico and the U.S. under the USMCA. The legislatures of both countries and Canada must move ahead as quickly as possible to ratify the new agreement, despite some objections in the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. and Mexico must implement their strategy to address the root causes of Central American migration north through Mexico to the U.S., taking up President Lopez Obrador’s recent offer to increase Mexico’s minimum wage, launch a new youth jobs program and scholarships. The two countries should recognize that migration is what Ambassador Wayne termed “the most urgent area for U.S.-Mexican cooperation.

Both the U.S. and new government in Mexico, Ambassador Wayne added, must invest billions of dollars to encourage economic growth, job creation, and private investment in Mexico’s neighbors to the south: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Corrupt governments in those countries are the principal drivers of migrations north across Mexico to the U. S. border.

On December 18, less than three weeks after signing the USMCA accord, Mexico and the U.S. announced what Ambassador Wayne described as “an ambitious strategy to address the root causes of Central American migration.”

Washington, according to Ambassador Wayne, reportedly has sought a formal bilateral agreement with Mexico for asylum seekers to remain south of the border in Mexico while the U.S. considers their cases. He concedes that the two countries must still agree on how cooperation at the border will be implemented for those seeking entry to the U.S. He cautions that Mexico could face significant financial burdens as this bilateral arrangement is implemented.

Overall, however, Ambassador Wayne was optimistic. In a fact sheet for his FARNOVA audience, he said improved Mexico-U.S. ties should:

• Enhance facilitation of trade and travel with a focus on the border,
• Incorporate President Lopez Obrador’s development ideas for Mexico,
• Support Mexico’s efforts to reduce crime and violence and
• Deepen support for Central America to address root causes of migration.

Overall, I was struck by Ambassador Wayne’s support of Mexican President Lopez Obrador for helping to re-establish good relations with the U.S. through wise public diplomacy. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once observed: “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.”