Ana Quintana’s piece at RealClearWorld on building a strong relationship with Mexico starts out well enough:
The new president’s ambitious “America First†strategy means that Donald Trump intends to act in the best interests of the United States. Our friends and allies should find this course reassuring rather than threatening.
Few things are more important than having friendly, prosperous and secure neighbors on both sides of the border. The first scheduled meeting between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s has now been postponed. But when the two leaders finally do get together they will have lots to talk about, with pressing issues including trade, border security, and immigration.
but I found it pretty unsatisfying, focusing, as it does, on why we should want a strong relationship with Mexico rather than whether we can have a strong relationship with Mexico.
Is it possible to have a strong relationship with a weak country? Mexico has many, many problems many of which are exacerbated by the United States with the rest being tolerated by the United States.
What would a strong relationship between the two countries look like? A Mexico that does everything the United States wants? A United States that looks the other way at Mexico’s passive aggressive attitude and manifest social problems? Neither of those seems to fit the bill to me.
It will be interesting to see what Carlos Slim has to say today.
I think, just as in interpersonal relationships, each party should be transparent about its own self interest and establish boundaries. In this case, of course, a literal physical boundary is involved. Basically the US and Mexico should seek common interests and be clear about working together toward those goals without either party taking advantage of the other.
1) We decide to launch a war on drugs in large part because it’s an excellent tool for throwing lots of minorities in prison.
2) In the process we create a gigantic black market for drugs.
3) Which in turn creates an irresistibly profitable lure for Mexican gangs.
4) Who terrorize Mexico.
5) So the cretin in the White House can trash the Mexican people as criminals.
That’s our relationship with Mexico. We steal their land, we use their people, we blame them for the fact that we cannot keep agriculture alive without them and we blame them for the fact that we are one big nose waiting to snort their powder. We have been hypocritical assholes. We are primarily at fault for the problems between us and Mexico.
I think that Trump is just repeating what his opposite numbers in Mexico are telling him. It’s not hard to find the claim that all of the Mexicans who come to the United States are rejects and criminals from elite Mexicans.
I agree that U. S. policy is among the factors hurting Mexico. I also think Mexico has many problems that we didn’t create. I’m not in a position to make a relative apportioning of blame.
Yes, Mexico was such an idyllic paradise for the common man before the war on drugs, wasn’t it?