Let me start by saying that a US border wall, no matter how financed or who pays, will be ridiculously expensive. It certainly won’t do much to improve inter-country relations, and it looks like the auxiliary costs, like higher US food and import prices, will add hidden fees to the construction costs.
Many Americans feel that immigration is a bad thing, yet many Mexicans feel that emigration is the best route to a better life.
What if we change that? Can we?
What if the opportunities in Mexico were better than now? Why leave if you can do well at home?
Can we make Mexico great again? What if the US invested, not in a barrier, but something that would break down barriers, like education, employment opportunities, medical care, sanitation, etc. to improve the quality of life in Mexico (and Central America) and bring it to parity with the US? Think of what good could be done with the same amount of money that is being proposed to be spent on a humongous wall which may not work as intended, anyway.
Is Mexico’s problem a lack of capital for development or an overabundance of corruption? If the latter, then sending money is not the answer. And if we have a bunch of extra money lying around to invest in education, employment opportunities, etc in Mexico, might we want to use that money in the US rather than in Mexico?
But whatever the answer, building that stupid wall is not it. Complete waste of $$$.
Making Mexico strong and safe would help end the need / desire for a wall.
They have made great strides in reducing the barriers to starting a business, getting it down from 32 days to 8 (the US number is 6):
Mexico has also made it easier to buy property - though an outsider has to form a Mexican corporation to own it. The opens them up for more investment and migration.
The maquiladoras were helping create some jobs, but were clustered. It would have been better to spread them out. Unfortunately, they were built for cheap labor and taking advantage of NAFTA. For some firms, it was easier to keep chasing the cheaper labor costs of China and Vietnam. I would be happy with keeping the jobs in our hemisphere, as I think that too would help ease off some of the pressure.
The cartels cause a lot of problems - the US could offer even more aid in tracking them down for the Mexican government. I know we offer some, I would like to see us offer more (and yes, continuing the legalization of some controlled substances would help there as well).
I’m not suggesting throwing money down south with abandon. Perhaps some kind of plan could be devised to make sure funds provided were used appropriately and not just to line some fat cat druglord’s pockets.
I really don’t have a concrete proposal for such – I am not a city planner nor economist. But surely there are good, practical ways to help our neighbor (and ourselves) positively instead of using a barrier of barbed wire and hate. I’m all ears for that kind of design.
funny thing is you have to change the mindset of the upper Mexican society because ive been told they don’t want reforms like a mimnuim wage and such their attitude is just let the peasants who don’t wont or cant slave for me go to the us …
I entirely agree that trying to wall off Mexico from the United States will not work. We’ve been increasing spending on patrolling the Mexican border for decades without any visible success. And I agree that making Mexico more prosperous would be the only solution that would prevent Mexicans from wanting to move to the USA.
But then we need to ask, why is Mexico so much poorer than the USA? Prosperity is a function of economic freedom. On the Index of Economic Freedom, countries near the top with high economic freedom are among the world’s most prosperous, while those near the bottom with low economic freedom are the world’s poorest. The USA is at #11, while Mexico is at #62. That’s why the USA is more prosperous and Mexico less. Like most third world countries, Mexico has terrible corruption. Unfortunately, dumping foreign aid into such countries tends not to work.
(To be clear, I am completely in favor of charitable outreach in poor countries. Organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Food for the Poor, and Agua para la Vidado immense amounts of good for many people. Those are private charities focused on specific problems. What I’m saying is, there is no evidence that a first world government shoveling money to a third world government can raise it up to first world, or raise it up much at all.)
What we should do is urge Mexico to move away from centralized control and towards free markets. There is precedent for this. In the 1960’s India was facing massive food shortages, and enormous shipments of food from the USA was the only possible way that India could avoid starvation. President Johnson gave them the food, but required in return that India liberalize laws concerning agriculture. It worked. As government micromanagement of farming, fertilizer, and other industries went down, food production went up and soon India was self-sufficient in food. In Mexico today, starvation is not a threat, but the USA could offer other types of aid in exchange for shifts towards free markets in others areas. Frankly I’m not sure that the Trump administration will go for that, unfortunately.
An imperial nation building exercise in Mexico could be a pick me up for the American military, given the short supply lines, somewhat similar cultures, and a lot more American soldiers probably speak Spanish than Arabic, Pashto, or Farsi. The American government could declare war on the cartels, basically treating them and their sympathizers in the government like a terrorist group. Whether the civilians would be cool with American soldiers in their cities or start planting IEDs and shooting RPGs, I dunno. I remember seeing this floated in a couple places back when the cartels were in the middle of killing 60k or so people.
Really funny. To attribute self sufficiency to free market and change in laws and getting the government out.
India became self sufficient because of the green revolution. The Rockefeller foundation sponsored work on dwarf hybrid wheat strains in Mexico. Mexico went through a green revolution. India and Pakistan came up next. The Rockefeller foundation provided expertise, the ford foundation money for seeds etc, the state dept and UN pushed and the Indian government pulled. The green revolution in India was on its way. Rice would come next. NGO and government intervention was necessary on both sides. Mexico was important as a source and prececessor example.
Fertilizer is more useful only with the right strains. No doubt there may have been some slight change in laws, but this was inevitable. The first generation of land laws in independent India focused on equity, on limiting zamindari system and securing land for sharecroppers/tenant farmers who were de facto in debt. The later generation focused on price support for crops etc, which still got the government into it. The government ran example farms to kick start the green revolution.
Pre independent India also ran cyclic famines. Independent and democratic India had issues too, (but not as bad as 1940s Bengal famine) before the inflection point. A better political structure helped
I think the problem was for years was Mexico basically dumping its problems on the US.
So young person want a job? Move to the US.
Want an education? No, we wont build you a school. Move to the US.
Want good roads, clean water, and sanitation? No we wont build that. Move to the US.
Oh, and send money home. I’ve read where remittances are Mexico’s #2 source of foreign income next to oil. Mexico gets billions but doesnt have to build a single school, road, airport, or sewage system.
Mexico doesn’t get the money, individuals get the money. Unless that money is taxed, none of it is available for the government to do anything with it.
Well, that is not being fair to Mexico or the real world. I have to agree with Hans Rosling. A lot of what many people think about developing nations is wrong. Particularly about the bit that they are not developing at all.
I have seen other reports that Mexico still does better than many other Latin American nations. But the forecast was lower in 2016 and it looks that is going to lower numbers for 2017 thanks to a very likely trade war that was really unnecessary.
Still, I do agree that corruption and inequality are big issues there, but I do not think that forcing them to pay to build a wall will make things better.
Let US companies establish factories there, if the economics favour it.
And let the market decide, not government directives, and don’t rely on charity or foreign aid. Let the market establish economic incentives.
Then you’d have good paying jobs in Mexico and less need for Mexicans to come north. And that could help provide cheaper products to American consumers.
Maybe companies like Ford and Carrier would be interested in those opportunities.
First of all I think that this thread has a lot of assumptions that are not proven or are incorrect.
That all citizens of Mexico have to come to the US to be successful.
Mexico has been dropping it’s own protectionist policies of the decades and has far more supportive of Engineering and Design Education that the US has
That the US’s problem of illegal labor is caused by only the citizens of Mexico.
Only about half of unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico today and those numbers are going down.
That living next to a protectionist, militaristic and huge economy has been all positive.
Hard to have lots of stability when your Neighbor causes problems with drug wars, industry stability etc…
That Mexico is some how one of the poor nations of the world.
In gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita, The US is #13 and Mexico is #68 out of 189 countries.
While Mexico has lots of opportunities to grow their economy, improve conditions for it’s workers and improve industry they are doing it.
But they are not some charity case, mostly what they need is a rational, non-protectionist Neighbor country. What they need is a US that doesn’t base policy on irrational beliefs that bringing back dead end jobs will more them forward.
The fact that we do not provide a legitimate seasonal or guest worker program and that we have several job areas where Americans just will not work is not a problem of Mexico, it is a domestic problem within the US.
While Mexico is in no way perfect I would disagree with the use of (many) in the OP. And the ONLY justifications for the for the wall is irrational bigotry and assumptions.
Mexico is the one moving forward, and they will have growing pains but the US is falling due to just as many reasons but really the question should be what can Mexico do to save the US.