By Jonathan Movroydis
The future of Mexico’s prosperity and security depends on its cooperation with the United States and other like-minded actors in the Americas, argued the country’s former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda in a recent episode of Hoover’s Battlegrounds series, hosted by Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow H. R. McMaster.
Castañeda began the conversation by describing his vision for US-Mexico relations when he served in the administration of President Vincente Fox two decades ago. He explained that Fox wanted to advance the concept of stronger economic integration with the United States and Canada as a follow-up to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), particularly on the issue of cross-border migration and the use of energy resources. Similarly, Mexican leaders hoped that they could address broader regional issues related to human rights, collective defense of democracy, and protecting the climate.
“We were on the right track . . . but then of course 9/11 came along and all of a sudden that made us no longer a priority [for the United States],” Castañeda said. “We perhaps bit off more than we could chew.”
Castañeda talked favorably about the Biden administration’s proposal that calls for the regularization of more than 12 million unauthorized immigrants, approximately half of whom are Mexican nationals. He maintained that the demand for low-skill labor is high in the United States, as evident in the recent increase in visas for seasonal and temporary workers. He also asserted that the undocumented can be absorbed into the work force and achieve a pathway to citizenship without displacing or depressing the wages of Americans.
Castañeda argued that while the outbreak of COVID-19 exposed vulnerabilities in critical supply chains, especially those heavily reliant on China, the pandemic has also revealed an opportunity for the United States and Mexico to strengthen trade ties and other areas of economic cooperation. He explained that NAFTA’s successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, provides a framework for the re-concentration of supply chains in North America. He added, however, that market forces weren’t enough to support such a shift. Political leadership in both countries would have to take a proactive stance.
Castañeda offered criticism of current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy platform. He contended that López Obrador hasn’t been a cooperative global partner on mitigating the damaging impacts of climate change. He charged, too, that the president has curtailed private investment across its energy sector. While López Obrador sees state control over energy sources as closely tied to Mexico’s economic and political sovereignty, some analysts predict that his policies will lead to negative consequences for the future of the country’s petroleum output.
“I think President López Obrador’s policies, macroeconomic policies mainly, but also his gut feelings are misguided,” Castañeda said. “I think he is doing the country a great deal of harm by bringing it back to the 1970s with a very statist, nationalist, introverted perspective on Mexico.”
Castañeda also criticized López Obrador’s lack of cooperation in countering the global distribution of illicit drugs. Chinese companies produce the largest volume of fentanyl, but Mexico-based cartels are a central node for its transit across North America. According to the CDC, in 2019, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were responsible for more than 36,000 deaths in the United States. Castañeda pointed to the error in López Obrador’s theory that by his government pulling back from counternarcotics operations, the country would see a reduction in cartel violence.
“The number of willful homicides per 100,000 is as high as it’s ever been,” Castañeda explained. “We are probably in many ways in a worse situation than we have been for many years.”
Castañeda emphasized that recent elections in Mexico and elsewhere reflect a trend toward extremist politics in Latin America. He explained that this phenomenon is due in large part to corrupt and ineffective governments that have delivered mediocre results for their citizens over the past two decades in terms of economic growth, equal access to opportunity, and improvements to its pension and health care systems. Castañeda maintained that in addition to Mexico, countries such as Peru, Argentina, and Nicaragua are experiencing an erosion of democratic institutions and the rule of law. Even in Chile, which has been hailed as a success story following its adoption of market-based economic policies in the 1980s, seems poised to elect a far-left government this fall.
“It’s a misguided shift. It will lead to the wrong place,” Castañeda argued. “But there are valid reasons for it.”
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