Opinion Archive

Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.  

What to Make of Calderón’s American Trip

February 13, 2008  

What a difference a sexenio makes. In 2000, President Bush and President Fox had been elected in the same year. Breaking with tradition, the first foreign trip Mr. Bush made was to Mexico, saying that it was the most important international relationship for the US. President Fox then went to Washington during the first week of September 2001. He was received with mariachis and fireworks at the White House and he addressed a joint session of Congress. Then, five days after his departure, a group of Arabs attacked New York and Washington. This past Sunday his successor, President Calderón, arrived in New York to a much more hostile United States. He, and his country, deserve better.

No more pomp and very different circumstance

Mr. Calderón believes that an American trip was overdue. He ignored many who advised him that a lame duck presidency, a hotly-contested election, and the angry debate about Mexicans in the US meant that it was not the right time. So, the Mexican President kept a low profile, visiting Mexican immigrant communities and dropping by his alma mater, Harvard University, to receive an award. California, so far from Washington and so close to Mexico, is welcoming Calderón more ceremoniously: today he meets with Governor Schwarzenneger, Mayor Villarraigosa, and the state’s Congressional assembly. Nevertheless, compared to 2001, it’s all very underwhelming.

Of course, the intensity of the US-Mexico day-to-day relationship, with the largest permanent US diplomatic presence in the world here, persists in relative harmony. But the mood is one of foreboding, which interjects unnecessary volatility into an already difficult relationship.Of course, the intensity of the US-Mexico day-to-day relationship, with the largest permanent US diplomatic presence in the world here, persists in relative harmony. But the mood is one of foreboding, which interjects unnecessary volatility into an already difficult relationship.

Meanwhile, public opinion on both sides of the border is dangerously ambivalent to the relationship, mainly because they don’t understand it. In Mexico, just 18 months ago the US was 0.59 percentage points away from having a Mexican President ideologically opposed to Washington who did not believe in the pro-American economic and social status quo, or even in the desirability of the rule of law. On the American side, hostility to Mexicans and anti-NAFTA sentiment has gone from the fringes of the political debate to the center. On both sides, nationalist protectionism is gaining ground thanks to the information vacuum left by our government, business and qualified academic leaders.

Tell it like it is

President Calderón understands this, but has not created a coherent plan to stop it. Worryingly, he has picked up the ill-advised habit of scolding the US for its treatment of immigrants, which is sure to rally both his friends and his enemies against him. What is needed is a well-organized information campaign that influences public opinion, not presidential statements that are later used as verbal canon fodder by talk show hosts. There are plenty of American and Mexican-American experts (Robert Pastor, Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, as well as many from the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, for example) who could be on the talk show circuit, explaining this complex, but vital relationship. They, not Mexican politicians, should be on the air. Non-governmental Mexican and American organizations should be disseminating information about Mexico and its cooperation with the US. In addition, North American companies with interests on both sides of the border could launch a nationwide campaign to educate people regarding NAFTA. After so much one-sided talk about job losses, it’s time to see “This Job is a NAFTA job” bumper stickers on the pick-ups of millions of American workers who depend on North American trade.

On the Mexican side, Americans themselves are not an issue, but NAFTA is. A similar grass-roots campaign needs to be organized here in favor of trade, with real workers, not government ministries, as the stars. With the removal of tariffs on corn and beans there is now a certain caché in being anti-NAFTA. But the poverty of the Mexican farmer is due to half a century of political opportunism masquerading as agricultural policy, not to North American trade. Meanwhile, many more Mexicans depend on NAFTA-related jobs and Mexican consumers (i.e., everyone) depend on the low prices free trade ensures. Government officials, businesses, trade-related workers and consumers need to address the issue in a coordinated, direct and intelligent manner.

In sum, President Calderón needs to get interested parties with more local legitimacy to argue Mexico’s case on both sides and avoid making costly personal asides. But even as he winds down an imperfect first visit without public opinion on his side, he certainly deserves a much warmer American welcome. Not only because his efforts have been perfectly in line with American policy priorities, but because if he fails and things go terribly wrong in Mexico, the US won’t need a fence – it will need a dome.

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