Reclamations come and reclamations go, but we advance little in the substantive relationship with the U.S. Presidents are in Washington and parliamentarians share earthly goodies in Campeche, but for some reason, I always am left with the sensation that Groucho Marx, the great serious comic, already anticipated with his famous phrase: “I’ve had a perfect evening, but this wasn’t it.” Because it is such a complex and diverse border along which, in the words of Octavio Paz, the first world meets the third, what is impressive is how well the two governments interact to resolve problems, administer processes, and overcome conflicts and incidents of every ilk. In a word, the relationship is being managed, but is not being built.
There is no dearth of spaces of communication and interaction, but, in the last analysis, nearly all of these occasions are finally convenient pulpits for rhetoric, often inflamed, instead of invitations to amity and bilateral transformation. Meetings between functionaries of both governments, from the presidential to the border-governor level, of legislators and of those responsible for the day-to-day administration of all governmental stations, are frequent and germane, but are generally limited to skirting the pitfalls, sorting out the most recent incident de jour, and attempting to put on a good face for the perpetual storm. This manner of interacting maintains the necessary coexistence, but does not permit envisaging a better future because no one even imagines one.
The ability to interact and resolve problems is something that deserves enormous recognition. Until no more than two or three decades ago, Mexican governments viewed the Americans with suspicion, and, in fact, employed nationalistic and anti-American bombast as a vehicle to build and sustain internal legitimacy. This reality of domestic politics rendered contemplation of a distinct vision for the future impossible and limited any interchange to the indispensable. The change of tack dating from the liberalization of exports in the mid-eighties promoted a redefinition of the relationship with the U.S., an innovation that eventually translated into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and very tight interaction in all orders.
Today, twenty years after the beginning of negotiations in commercial matters, both nations recognize the inevitability of the relationship, and, above all, the interdependence that exists between the two. Washington as well as Mexico City recognizes that many of the problems besetting each country are unsolvable without the active concurrence of the other nation. This fact constitutes a landmark in a relationship that, though long-time, has not always been embraced by the populations and governments on either side of the border.
But greater proximity and interaction have not heightened the understanding that one country has of the other. Each expects the other to resolve the problems that besiege it without ever amending the true restrictions under which the neighbor operates. Mexico expects and presses the U.S. to resolve the migratory theme and that of arms export, while the U.S. expects us to resolve the drug issue. In both cases, this concerns illusory and unrealizable expectations, not because no solutions exist, but rather, because these are inconceivable if unaccompanied by joint action. Whether we like it or not, the day the matter of migration is really met head-on, Mexico will be compelled to commit itself to regulating the flow of Mexicans exiting the country at informal border points, while the U.S. will be obliged to find a way to diminish drug use within its territory. That’s it in a nutshell: there is no other way.
From our perspective, better understanding of the motivations of those who oppose legalization for Mexican migrants would allow resistance to eventual legislation to diminish, while requiring us to come to terms with some of our most prominent shortcomings, such as the absence of legality in innumerable spaces and activities in our country. For Americans, a better understanding of the differences in focus and history that motivate and self-justify our migrants and our politicians would impel them to be less critical and more responsible in some of their attitudes. Both of us have much to understand about the other. However, none of this is possible if there is no long-term vision of what this bilateral relationship is, can be, and should be.
NAFTA created a structure that establishes the norms for commercial interaction and investment flows, and has become perhaps the leading factor in Mexico’s economic stability. There have been diverse attempts to enrich and fortify this mechanism, but, for whatever reason, none has prospered to any marked degree. The animus of the vision that sparked and drove the negotiation twenty years ago has disappeared from the map and nothing has replaced it. In addition to the growing economic interdependence, what indeed did prosper was the propinquity developed by both nations’ officials to resolve crises every time they appear. Although it is obvious that crises and problems will not diminish while such considerable differences prevail between the two nations, the resolutive capacity of the two governments is impressive and explains the celerity with which the U.S. government has responded every time a difficult situation appears imminent, as occurred with the visit of the entire U.S. Security Cabinet to Mexico a few months ago.
But we must not lose sight of that the objective of NAFTA was to be the accelerant for Mexico’s development. Both governments at the time recognized that was critical was for Mexico to achieve high and sustained growth rates, and that this would require certainty in the permanence of the economic policy, investment flows to Mexico, and access for Mexican products to the U.S. marketplace. Viewed in retrospect, the specifics have been fulfilled, but not the development.
The reason for this has nothing to do with the U.S., but with our own disinclination for modifying the archaic internal structures that have become impediments to investment and, in general, to development. There are many hypotheses on what is lacking, but there is no doubt that the educational system, poor-quality infrastructure, deficient public safety, and the absence of legality are powerful factors in this process. In inverse fashion, if these factors were modified, all of the variables would in turn be easily reconciled.
The U.S. is our natural ally and the chief source of opportunities for our national development, but the latter will not come about if we do not define what we want and adapt the rhetoric to achieve it. Without vision, the oratory will continue to be one of protests and will not let us build and have leverage over our development in the most difficult, but also the most sought-after, neighborhood of the world.