Opinion Archive

What to Make of Mexico and Latin America

April 1, 2009

According to legend, the term "Latin America" was popularized when Napoleon III wanted to promote a French connection to the region in order to legitimize the rule of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. Today, it is useful to identify more than 20 countries that use a Romance language and are predominantly Roman Catholic.

Mexico is the only Latin American country that is a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement. This, and the surprising scope of its relations with the United States, causes some confusion among internationalists. Often, a false debate arises about whether Mexico is a "North" or a "Latin" American country. It is, of course, both. As a reference to a shared Iberoamerican cultural heritage, the term "Latin America" is very useful. As a label used to lump our international relations with other Romance-language speaking countries in the region, it is pretty much useless, especially vis-à-vis the United States.

Last week this column criticized a Miami Herald columnist who insists on saying that Mexico and Brazil compete to represent Latin American interests in Washington. Your correspondent argues that it is silly to think that Brazil could be relevant to US-Mexico relations, just like it would be foolish to think that Mexico could represent a Mercosur country's interests in the US. The US and Mexico have perhaps the most intimate relationship of any two countries in the world, including the most crossed border anywhere and tens of millions of each other's citizens living in, or visiting, each other. At the same time, South America is an important region with specific interests that relate to the US. Nevertheless, Brazil, the region's largest country by far, had about $60 billion dollars in trade with the US last year. Mexico had over $367 billion. Mexico has 55 clogged lanes of traffic between the two countries, over a dozen railroad crossings, and hundreds of flights to and from every major city of both countries. Brazil, on the other hand, sends a few 747s between LA, Miami and New York and Sao Paolo and Rio. More to the point, in every single area of international relations: security, trade, international crime, migration, environment, etc., South American interests and Mexican interests do not coincide.

Even if Mexico were to achieve a leadership role in the region by some unusual act of acrobatic statesmanship, is it really feasible to imagine Mexico turning down preferential treatment for its citizens regarding immigration over those of other Latin American countries, for example? By the same token, if Brazil were to have its sugar export quotas to the US lifted, is it realistic to expect that it would hold out until Mexico's were lifted, as well? Of course not.

Further, despite linguistic and cultural affinities, Mexico and the rest of Latin America don't mix much. Yes, Central Americans use Mexico as a bridge to the US and hundreds of thousands of them have stayed. But there are more Americans living on Lake Chapala than there are Brazilians living in all of Mexico. Or, try being a Peruvian, or a Colombian, and getting a Mexican visa. It's not that Mexico has anything against the region; Mexico has simply decided that it must safeguard access to its northern border. As was mentioned last week, when Mexico removed travel restrictions on Brazilians, they became the largest source of undocumented migration to the US by what Homeland Security calls "OTMs" ("Other Than Mexicans").

Mexico is not willing to impinge on its relations with the US for the sake of Latin American solidarity. This important asymetry in terms of north versus south means that Mexico cannot be a "leader" in terms of representing the interests of other countries in this hemisphere. At the same time, the importance of Mexico across the entire spectrum of foreign and domestic issues, as well as the intensity of its relations with the US, mean that it would be silly to think that any country could represent Mexico.

During the 2006 elections Felipe Calderón was the only one of three major presidential candidates to be able to identify Belmopan as the capital of Belize (a country that shares a border with Mexico). Despite some notable exceptions (Ángel Gurría, who is the head of the OECD, or Bernardo Sepúlveda, a judge at the International Court of Justice, for example), Mexicans are inward-looking people. Educational deficiencies mean that they are generally profoundly ignorant of the rest of the world. Worse, like most Americans, they are indifferent. The upshot is that this North American Latin American country should aspire to lead by example, not by competing with Brazil for influence. Nothing would be better for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking America than to have its second-largest country be a peaceful, prosperous democracy under the Rule of Law.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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