Border fence in West Texas / Tom Barry
May 2, 2013
Tom Barry
Published
by NACLA at: https://nacla.org/news/2013/5/2/changing-perspectives-us-mexico-relations
TransBorder
Project Policy Report
It’s
unfortunate that the two presidents chose to hold their May 2-3 summit in
Mexico City. Both nations and Presidents Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto
would have been better served by a meeting at the border—where the grim reality
of neighborly relations would not be masked by the pomp and circumstance of the
grand presidential residence of Los Pinos.
A
meeting at the customs building in Ciudad Juárez—the site of the first
Mexico-U.S. presidential meeting in 1909 between Porfirio Díaz and William
Taft—would have likely resulted in a more memorable and productive summit of
the current heads of state, Enrique Peña Nieto and Barack Obama. As it is, this
meeting will likely be soon forgotten—lost in protocol, predictable rhetoric
about interdependence, and the photogenic smiles of the two presidents.
A
century ago the Rio Grande/Río Bravo clearly marked the divide between El Paso
and Juárez, the border twins that were jointly known as El Paso del Norte—the
pass to the north. Today, however, it’s unlikely that the presidential
delegations and the accompanying media would now passes for a river—really just
an alarmingly greenish trickle of pesticides, fertilizer runoff, and human
waste.
Instead of
news photos from the bilateral meeting depicting two smiling presidents, we
would be witnessing images of the stark divide between the two neighbors: the
formidable border security infrastructure, the smog rising from the long lines
of vehicles waiting to cross, the beggars and street vendors taking advantage
of the stalled south-north traffic, the ravages of the drug wars, the miles of
low-slung factories called maquiladoras, the sprawling colonias of
Mexico’s expanding, but still largely poor, middle class (those families earning
at least $7,500 annually), and still-poorer squatter settlements that spread
out into the Chihuahuan Desert.
The
lead items of the Los Pinos meeting are ones that have long dominated
U.S.-Mexico presidential meetings: immigration, border control, economic
integration, and drug-related security. The presidents will achieve some
camaraderie chatting about the domestic political obstacles that complicate
their plans for national and international progress. In the pleasant,
climate-controlled setting of Los Pinos, it’s unlikely that Peña Nieto and
Obama will address in any depth, if at all, what will soon become the top
agenda item of most binational and multilateral meetings: the scourge of
climate change.
Climate
Change
If
Obama and Peña Nieto were to talk about common concerns while on the border
instead of in sitting rooms of the White House and Los Pinos, they would see a
common future in the river that divides the two nations. Climate
change-aggravated drought has reduced the Río Bravo to a viscous, milky green
trickle. Groundwater reserves in the greater borderlands are being quickly
depleted, and farmers, ranchers, and city planners on both sides of the border
are battling over rapidly diminishing supplies in the first skirmishes of the
water wars that will surely soon overshadow the drug wars as the main threat to
regional stability.
A
common commitment by Obama and Peña Nieto for each government to do its part to
mitigate and mutually adjust to climate change—which doesn’t respect border
lines or border security fortifications—would be a sign that binational
relations can move beyond being merely economic partners and fighting on the
same side of the drug war. The sad plight of the once glorious Río Bravo
should not further divide the two nations, but bring the communities to the
north and those to the south together as neighbors and part of the larger North
American community with shared interests and responsibilities.
Immigration
Obama comes
to Mexico buoyed by an increased personal popularity among U.S. Latinos and
Mexicans, largely because of his deepened commitment to reform U.S. immigration
policy, but also due to his more assertive stance on behalf of the poor and
middle class. The improved (although faltering) prospects for
immigration reform will not be well served if Obama continues to use the
support for immigration reform as a political crutch.
At
the Mexico City meeting, and during all policy discussions about immigration,
President Obama should sketch out a new vision of regional immigration that is
just, sustainable, and mutually beneficial, delink his support for immigration
reform from the wasteful U.S. border security buildup, and administratively
suspend the immigrant detention and deportation practices of the Department of
Homeland Security until immigration reform is passed and instituted.
Immigration
flows from Mexico have nearly zeroed out as the Mexican economy continues to
expand at the relatively high rate of more than 3.5% annually since 2009. A
reliable and easily used system of employee verification should be the
guarantor of a sustainable immigration policy, rather than the proposed
billion-dollar yearly increases in border security operations and
infrastructure.
Border
Security
The
near-fortification of the border during the Bush and Obama administrations has
greatly stymied regional trade and the once-vibrant crossborder culture. In
highly urbanized areas such as the El Paso-Juárez metroplex, some level of
border fencing makes for good neighborly relations, but the 3,169-kilometer
border the “secure border fence” is not only a multibillion waste of scarce
U.S. revenues, it’s also a shameful monument to U.S. xenophobia and political
opportunism.
President
Obama should shed the “border security” framing of U.S.-Mexico border policy
adopted by the Bush administration and tell President Peña Nieto and the U.S.
public that Mexico and Mexicans present no security risk to the borderlands or
the U.S. homeland. Terrorism is a palpable threat to U.S. public safety and
national security, but this threat is best met by better U.S. intelligence
about potential foreign and domestic terrorists and by a common regional
security perimeter—not by continuing or increasing military-like measures of
border control including drones and militarized border patrols.
Economic
Integration
Both
presidents will likely commit their governments to facilitating cross-border
commerce and improving the infrastructure necessary for vibrant, profitable
trade and investment. That’s important, but Obama and Peña Nieto will be remiss
if they do not first situate their discussion about economic integration within
the context of the entire region.
The
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 fell far short of
delivering the broadly shared economic development and employment gains
promised by its promoters. It was little more than a trade and investment
agreement, whose labor and environmental side accords and associated
institutions had little enforcement power and limited reach. Even before NAFTA,
the economies of Canada, United States, and Mexico were increasing their
structural integration not just in trade but also in such now highly integrated
sectors as energy resources, electricity, agriculture, and manufacturing
(including highly integrated automotive and aviation production). Since 1994
regional trade has tripled and foreign investment increased six times. Mexico
is the second largest importer of U.S. goods, following Canada; moreover, the
United States is by far the leading market for Mexican exports.
Both
Mexico and the United States are currently engaged in another economic
liberalization initiative called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving
more than a dozen other nations, mostly Asian but also including Chile and
Canada. Many of the concerns and criticisms about the corporate-driven
character of NAFTA are also highly relevant to the TPP negotiations. However,
the main problem of the new, Asia-oriented focus of U.S. and Mexican
trade/investment initiatives is the failure to appreciate, leverage, and
improve the highly integrated North American economy. The Obama and Peña Nieto
trade teams should recognize the mutual benefits of including Canada in talks
about smart borders, trade infrastructure, educational visas, security
perimeters, immigration, and further economic liberalization—as should the
Canadian government.
Presidents
Obama and Peña Nieto should embrace the concept—and the reality—of a North
American community (a concept heralded by Robert Pastor and other scholars and
visionary policy analysts) shaped by demographic trends and economic
integration. Whether structured or not by new regulations and institutions, the
emergence of a North American community is evident in existence of some 30
million Mexican Americans in the United States.
The
NAFTA institutions such as the North American Development Bank and the North
American Commission for Environmental Cooperation as well as such important
bilateral initiatives as Border 2020 (which emerged from the 1983 La Paz
environmental agreement) should not be left to wither away, but seized upon as
the building blocks of a more sustainable regional community that extends
beyond economic liberalization. Such institutions are among the first steps of
recognizing and shaping the south-north community. Focusing on Asia is looking
away from our own region’s complementarity and common future.
Both
governments will surely point to fundamental importance of the two nations as
trading partners. Yet the trade and investment numbers fall far short in defining
the identity, advantages, and challenges of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. More
than economic partners, the United States and Mexico are next-door neighbors
and all that this proximity implies for the future welfare of both nations.
Governance measures on such issues as energy, environmental standards,
immigration flows, weapons, illegal drugs, and labor standards need to follow
and shape economic integration. If there is to be a sustainable North American
community, the framework of economic integration must necessarily address the
stark regional imbalances in Mexico’s economic growth and development—with
Mexico’s southern states left further and further behind. Similarly, cheaper
consumer goods made possible by liberalized trade and investment do not compensate
for stagnation of Mexican wages—averaging just over $2 an hour.
Not
to be missed is the growing militancy of teachers, students, and agricultural
workers in southern Mexico, which was the defining theme of the May 1 marches
in Mexico City and elsewhere. Casting a long shadow over the summit will be the
intensifying teacher-led protests over the federal reforms of labor and
education policy. Centered in Mexico’s poorest southern states, especially
Guerrero, the anti-government opposition is protesting the labor, energy, and
education reforms of the Peña Nieto government and the Pact for Mexico, which
has brought together Mexico’s leading political parties over a package of
long-overdue reforms.
Drugs and
Guns
Drug
trafficking and related violence have largely shaped the binational
relationship over the past six years. During his first term, President Obama
correctly identified the “shared responsibility” of the United States for the
horrific drug-related violence in Mexico. But the Obama administration
abysmally failed in shouldering its responsibility. By continuing the
military-oriented aid of the Bush administration’s Mérida Initiative, the Obama
administration contributed to the increase of drug-related violence and human
rights violations in Mexico. By encouraging and largely directing the Calderón
government’s military-directed drug war, the Obama administration—along with
the Calderón government and Mexico’s security forces—turned large parts of
Mexico into killing grounds where assault weapons, not the rule of law, are the
only instruments of governance and control.
Despite
the Obama administration’s assessment that Mexican drug trafficking
organizations constitute a security threat not only to Mexico but also to the
United States and to the nations of Central America, President Obama has failed
to take sufficient measures to stop the flow of military-grade weaponry to
organized criminal organizations and bandits in the region.
The
failure to stand up for gun control until the Newtown massacre is emblematic of
President Obama’s lead-from-behind posture in many controversial domestic
issues, including immigration. In truly addressing the shared responsibility of
the United States for violence in Mexico—which has led to the killing or
disappearance of nearly 100,000 Mexicans (overwhelmingly civilians) since
2006—President Obama needs to take the lead in finally ending the drug
prohibition era and the related U.S.-supported drug wars.
Similarly,
President Peña Nieto must, as part of his declared commitment to “crime
prevention” and ending the military-led drug war, call for drug legalization in
the United States, joining other Latin American leaders as well as Javier
Sicilia and the Movement for Justice with Peace and Dignity. Although not
yet calling for the end to the drug-prohibition induced drug wars, Peña Nieto
has rightly ended the wholesale drug-interdiction campaigns and drug-kingpin
targeting initiated by Calderón and the U.S. government and instead committed
his administration to a violence-reduction and law-enforcement strategy.
While
the shape of the strategy remains unclear, dramatically reducing the pervasive
and proactive military presence throughout much of Mexico has been an
appropriate first step. The Mexican president has narrowed the window of U.S.
involvement in intelligence, counternarcotics operations, and Mexican military
affairs—a clear rebuff to the U.S. government. The Obama administration may be
justifiably concerned about the ability of the new government to diminish the
power and reach of criminal organizations built largely on drug-trafficking,
yet President Obama should, in a gesture of solidarity and shared
responsibility, acknowledge the systemic flaws in U.S. counternarcotics and
anti-organized crime strategies.
Pervasive
patterns of human rights violations, impunity, and police and judicial
corruption/reform should be top among U.S. concerns at the presidential
meeting. At the same time, however, President Obama should acknowledge that the
United States’ four-decade strategy of attempting to reduce the flow of illicit
drugs has not only failed, but also led to a raft of adverse consequences.
Right on!
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