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The New U.S.-Mexican Relationship
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20491 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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5 / 1992 |
3,248 Words |
| Author
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Sidney Weintraub and Jan Gilbreath
Sidney Weintraub is dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of
Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. Jan
Gilbreath is a policy analyst for the U.S.-Mexican Policy
Studies Program at the Johnson School. |
The United States viewed Mexico as a problem rather than an ally throughout the Cold War period. But the "problem" of Mexico stemmed as much from unwanted social and economic disputes pouring in from south of the U.S. border as it did from differing ideological stands. From the White House perspective, unwanted immigrants came from Mexico. In addition, the main route for drugs from Latin America was through Mexico. Threats to the U.S. financial community came from Mexico when the country managed its economic affairs badly and needed bailing out in 1976 and again in 1982.
From the Mexican side, unwilling economic dependence on the United States was directly proportional to the nation's staunch independence in foreign policy. The Cold War was an emotional issue in the United States, and opposing U.S. views on Cuba and other foreign policy issues became emotional causes in Mexico. When the United States took a position in the Organization of American States against Cuba or in the United Nations in opposing Zionism as racism, Mexico was almost certain to be on the other side. At home, Mexican politicians ran against the "gringo," and the Mexican press was sure to highlight on page one those stories that put the United States in a bad light. Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, for example, deliberately gave President Jimmy Carter a hard time during a state visit by accusing the United States of "sudden deceit" over the price of Mexican natural gas.
In Washington, policymakers shrugged off these public shows as predictable Mexican truculence against U.S. foreign policy. Little energy was poured into improving U.S.-Mexican political relations, because the United States felt it had bigger fish to fry elsewhere. Washington's perception was that the United States had world responsibilities, and Mexican behavior complicated their achievement. The most important of these responsibilities was to contain communism and to wage the Cold War on all fronts.
The U.S. attitude toward Cold War financing deepened the political rift with Mexico. During the 1980s, the United States was quite prepared to spend billions of dollars in Central America, which has about one-fourth the population of Mexico, as a necessary cost of fighting the Cold War. Comparable expenditures were never contemplated to help Mexico out of the deep economic recession it faced following the debt crisis in the early 1980s. The United States did fear that Mexico might become a domino after the fall of Central America. But it was the distance between Managua, Nicaragua, and Harlingen, Texas, that President Ronald Reagan measured, rather than the disappearing line at
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