Another article today had Pres. Bush “mending fences” with Vicente Fox. We all know (and have different views, I suspect) on Bush’s consistent efforts to liberalize immigration from Mex. (amnesty, anyone), and I can see the domestic reasons Bush might think favors this (i.e., increasing his share of the Hispanic American vote), even if I don’t necessarily think he’ll actually reap much benefit even there.
But more than a few articles have Fox “pressuring” Bush or making “demands.” I’d think that Mexico needs the U.S. a whole lot more than vice versa – sure, the U.S. depends on maquiladoras for cheap manufacturing, but then, what is Fox going to do – cut his nose off to spite his face by stopping exports to his country’s biggest source of outside investment? Doubtful. Mexico also receives U.S. aid. I’m just having a hard time seeing, as a matter of power-politics, what economic, or political, or military cards Fox has to play that would embolden him to make any “demands” on the U.S., as opposed to supplicating. Given GWB’s reputation as a bully who tells other countries (or the U.N.) that it’s his way or the highway, why does he appear so concerned with keeping Fox happy, as opposed to telling him to take or leave the relationship that best serves America’s selfish interests? Why more solicitous of Fox than, say, the leaders of France or Germany?
That’s a hard one to figure out. Although I’m a Republican, and I’m Conservative, I, overall, haven’t been too pleased with Bush. One of the reasons is, contrary to what I thought he’d be like when I voted for him, that is being strong, standing up for his beliefs, and not backing down, there are several times he’s backed down, for reasons which are beyond me.
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised when Fox starts demanding things of Bush, but when Bush is basically going “Yes sir,” and “I’ll get on that sir,” and “right away sir” it doesn’t sit well with me.
The amnesty thing probably was for more Latino votes, as is probably any pandering to Fox. But to me, that’s not right. Fox is basically telling us that it’s our job to make his people’s lives better. If I was President, I would tell Fox that he and his government need to be the ones to work on their poverty, and other problems that drive their people to come to the US in masses. But with Bush, Fox gets to sit back, place demands on and criticize Bush, while doing nothing himself to better the lives of the Mexican people. And Bush just goes along with it. Again, why? Who knows?
I don’t have a cite handy, but I heard an excerpt of a CBS interview with Fox on Friday, and he mentioned that Mexico was one of the biggest importers of American products – more than France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden put together, or something comparable.
Assuming the claim is true that Mexico is a decent-sized trading partner with the U.S., couldn’t he use “banning US imports” as a cudget against Bush? The US economy is still limping along, after all, and job growth is still pathetically dismal, so Bush needs every bit of help he can get. Trade restrictions from Mexico could possibly hurt us more than it hurts them…
Joel: *Fox is basically telling us that it’s our job to make his people’s lives better. If I was President, I would tell Fox that he and his government need to be the ones to work on their poverty, and other problems that drive their people to come to the US in masses. *
But isn’t that what the North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to fix? The US pressured Mexico to accept NAFTA’s trade liberalization provisions on the grounds that it would lift Mexicans out of poverty. But crummy sweatshop jobs (many of which have now moved to China anyway) have not improved the lot of Mexican workers, while the US’s continued commitment to agricultural protectionism has made it even harder for Mexican farmers to export their products.
It seems a little unfair for us to lean on Mexico about NAFTA with the promise that it’ll help fix their poverty problems, and then when the policy doesn’t deliver, to turn around and complain that it’s Mexico’s job to fix its own poverty problems.
[/slight hijack]
OP:I’m just having a hard time seeing, as a matter of power-politics, what economic, or political, or military cards Fox has to play that would embolden him to make any “demands” on the U.S […]
I think it’s largely Fox’s own citizenry that are holding his feet to the fire, and he’s just passing the pressure on to Bush. From an August 2002 article:
Mexico is indeed not just our second-largest trading partner but a crucial labor source for a huge segment of our economy. And Mexicans in general are very dissatisfied with US policies, not just on trade and immigration but also, e.g., the Iraq war. The amount of direct aid that Mexico receives from the US is not seen as important enough to the average Mexican to balance these negative opinions.
If large numbers of Mexicans really do decide to implement a strike or stoppage or other political protest, it probably won’t make their individual situations much grimmer, but it could have severe (even if temporary) negative consequences not just for Fox but for the US economy.
So I think it would be a big mistake for us to believe that Mexico’s real position is one of humble dependence on the US, and they don’t hold any actual leverage. In the long run, Mexico may need us just as much as we need them; but in the near term, they’re not all that thrilled with what they’re getting out of the relationship, and they could make things quite uncomfortable for our already shaky economy if they decided to try.
We pressured Mexico? Really? And if Fox is so disappointed with NAFTA and blames it partially, or completely, for his peoples problems, then why does he want to expand it to include all South American countries?
Sorry, but I don’t see this as a “You forced us into this and it hasn’t worked, now you owe it to us to make up for it,” sort of thing.
Okay, so you’ve got this treaty called NAFTA, right, which creates a free trade zone for most goods and commodities in your region.
Mexicans can build things and sew things and grow things much more cheaply than you can, because they don’t have to be paid as much to do so. When you were coming up with this whole NAFTA deal, you neglected to ensure that it forces your trading partners to enforce comparable labor standards to your own, so now you’re stuck with a mass migration of skilled and unskilled labor need to the place where labor is cheapest.
Now Mexico has you by the short and curlies, because as long as Mexicans aren’t clamoring for a living wage or at least a minimum wage in accordance with the one guaranteed your workers, your own industries are going to start hiring Mexicans.
So, when Vicente Fox says he needs something for you, with the dangling carrot being the suggestion that he might push through a few labor reforms to help you become competitive again, you give him what he wants.
Fox does have some political leverage against Bush, if not “the US”. The GOP has a known (and obvious) goal of not letting the growing Hispanic population in the US, mostly of Mexican origin, become solidly Democratic. Bush has been the most visible proponent and practitioner in the party of reaching out, in whatever way you’d like to define that, for the Mexican-American vote. To succeed, he at least needs the current Mexican leadership, with whom he has claimed a close personal as well as working relationship in the past, to at least avoid stirring up the US-side Mexicans against him. All Fox would have had to do is threaten to endorse Kerry, or something like that, and the issue would be lost to the GOP for this election and the next generation.
Huerta88, it is my opinion that personalized analysis (Bush the bully) will utterly fail to understand how the international system works.
The US President faces pressure from multiple domestic and international actors and will ordinarily try to satisfy as many of them as possible. The US did try to gain support at the UN for the war in Iraq, and failed. Bush was approximately as solicitous of France and Germany as he could be without continuing the 1992-2002 no fly zone war indefinitely, and this had become politically impossible for several reasons, mostly having to do with 9/11. Most centerist US political commentators were in favor of the Iraq War, and Bush would have seemed very weak on the Islamofascists if he resisted such advice.
Re Mexican immigration, Bush is trying to come up with a position none of his key domestic and international constituencies will find completely unacceptable. If he wins the election he could eventually find a way, but I’m a pessimist. In the end the US government (Bush or Kerry plus Congress) will probably have to decide to make some constituency or other very unhappy. How can I see Fox equivalent as a constituency to conservative anti-immigration Republicans? I don’t know quite how, but I do. Part of it is that all these constituencies have economic power, part is that Bush, like any President meets a lot with foreign leaders. Politicians prefer not to say no.
I think some people misinterpret the impact that relations with Mexico have on the Hispanic vote, and the broader vote in areas such as Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Recent immigrants and the families of people that would be eligible for this “regularization” (don’t call it an amnesty) scheme are not generally able to vote. And it is not a simple matter of Vicente Fox being able to sway the Mexican American vote. Frankly, many Hispanics do not feel any loyalty at all to their “homelands”, especially if they are third or more generation Americans. However, good relations with Mexico are seen as good for business in the border states. It is the region’s business community that is backing this, and that includes an emerging class of small firms that are owned by Hispanics.
A major pillar of George W. Bush’s attempts to appear as a “compassionate conservative”- in contrast to the Pete Wilson/Pat Buchanan variety of Republican - is success among Hispanic voters in Texas. Anti-immigrant politics bothers even moderate and assimilated Hispanic Americans. I don’t think Bush, or Karl Rove, honestly expect the working class and poor Hispanics (including Dominican, Puerto Rican, and other people who are solidly Democrat) to bolt from the Democrats and vote for Bush. They are going after the 30% of Mexican Americans who are on the fence politically, but have kept away from Republicans in the past because their unchecked anti-immigrant rhetoric tends to take on nativist tones. This is enough of a “swing vote” to tip New Mexico and keep Arizona, Colorado, and Texas “safe” for years to come.
I also think while corporate interests are pushing hard for easier migration, in the current climate of anger over “outsourcing” and weak employment gains; Bush would rather play up the social and political angle of this question by presenting it as an issue of fairness toward illegal immigrants. Finally, George W. Bush came into office promising a new departure in U.S- Latin American relations, and made a point of being on good terms with Vicente Fox. Bush does not want to go into this campaign fending of the charge that his relationships with Mexico and Latin America have fallen far short of his initial promise.
To have more leverage, South America against the USA, it´s more even from a negotitation point of view than each individual country negotiating one to one with the USA.
Now, that would be nice if South American countries could come around some faint semblance of a concensus about economical matters… :rolleyes:
Yup. It’s true that the then-leading PRI party was mostly in favor of the agreement, but there was widespread opposition from other Mexican parties that US NAFTA supporters worked hard to help overcome.
And if Fox is so disappointed with NAFTA and blames it partially, or completely, for his peoples problems, then why does he want to expand it to include all South American countries?
I think you need to read my post more carefully, or maybe I needed to express it more clearly. I never said that Fox was disappointed with NAFTA or was blaming NAFTA. My NAFTA remarks, as I noted, were a slight hijack away from the topic of Fox’s leaning on Bush.
I was just pointing out that it seems a little unfair, after we so enthusiastically touted NAFTA as a major remedy for Mexican poverty, to distance ourselves now from its failure in that regard by saying that Mexico’s poverty is strictly Mexico’s problem.
Fox has absolutely zero leverage on Bush, especially in an election year. Fox went without expectations and knowing that there would be no negotiations concerning immigration. The Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat described the purpose as “renewing the friendship between the two presidents”.
The trip was aimed more at shoring up Fox’s eroding popularity, a conservative ideological soulmate of GW’s. Bush threw him a bone with the announcement that some Mexican visitors will not be photographed and fingerprinted when they enter the US. By just having Bush mention some sort of immigration reform earns Fox a few points in popularity.
So, let me get this straight, even though joining NAFTA was entirely Salinas’ idea and he spent a long time lobbying the US and Canada for entry, it’s the US’s fault that they joined? Give me a break.
Sure, there was opposition, that’s a given. There was opposition here, too. But Mexico wasn’t pressured by the US to join NAFTA - it was Mexico’s idea to do so.
Unfortunately, Mexico’s poverty largely is Mexico’s fault and NAFTA is not responsible for much of it, frankly. Almost all of Mexico’s current mess has to do with the Tequila Crisis and massive internal corruption.
Wrong. Again.
If you actually bother to look at the positions each country took with regard to liberalization, Mexico was pushing for far more trade liberalization than the US wanted - and I’m not talking about agriculture protections here, either, I’m talking about everything from the NAAEC to finance.
Salinas felt that NAFTA would help push Mexico out of poverty, and he had what he believed evidence that it would do so since instuting various neoliberal reforms had helped to finally slow inflation and get the Mexican economy back on track in the late 80s. So he pushed to join the CFTA and make it NAFTA. Various crises in the meantime, extremely poor implementation of the free trade agreement in Mexico and the general corruption in government and especially the unions has done more harm than the free trade agreement itself in holding down real wages south of the border.
Neurotik:So, let me get this straight, even though joining NAFTA was entirely Salinas’ idea and he spent a long time lobbying the US and Canada for entry, it’s the US’s fault that they joined?
No, I didn’t say that it was the US’s “fault” that they joined, and I’m aware that Salinas approached the Bush I administration on this topic. (Note, however, that the idea of having a continental free-trade partnership that included Mexico didn’t originate with Salinas; Reagan, for example, had supported the idea earlier.)
*Unfortunately, Mexico’s poverty largely is Mexico’s fault and NAFTA is not responsible for much of it, frankly. *
And I didn’t say that, either. What I said is not that NAFTA caused Mexico’s poverty, but that NAFTA failed to live up to the assurances by its many supporters that it would significantly reduce Mexico’s poverty.
*Almost all of Mexico’s current mess has to do with the Tequila Crisis and massive internal corruption. *
There’s some truth to that, although I think that what you describe as the “extremely poor implementation” of NAFTA (and what some consider to be, on the other hand, problems built into the structure of NAFTA itself) is also a major factor.
However, my point is that ten years ago, US NAFTA supporters weren’t loudly saying to Mexico “Frankly, your poverty is largely your fault and with your frequent crises and massive internal corruption, there’s not much that any trade-liberalization agreement with us can do to improve it.” What they were loudly saying was “NAFTA will be great for your farmers and manufacturers and laborers and will enable you to improve your general standard of living and buy more US products!” Now that this hasn’t happened as rosily pictured, it does seem a little sneaky to me to retreat into the “hey, Mexico’s poverty is Mexico’s problem and there’s really nothing we can do about it” stance.
What CBEscapee said. Fox’s actual leverage upon Bush is zero, zilch, nada. That Fox “demands” some concession is an assertion of their equal hierarchical status as heads of state, not an exercise in their differing degrees of bargaining equality. A candidate endorsement by Don Francisco would carry much more weight than an unlikely nod to any candidate by Fox.
Mexico’s “current mess” is the carryover from all its previous messes. Mexico had a brief flirtation with prosperity in the 1970s, and at all other times it has been essentially a quagmire. Chaos, ungovernability, crisis are words that Mexican analysts use freely and truthfully. Stinking little a free trade agreement will do when rent-taking and inequitable wealth distribution are ingrained into the national character.
Fair enough, but when you say that “The US pressured Mexico to accept NAFTA’s trade liberalization provisions” it sounds like you’re saying NAFTA was a US idea that had to be foisted on an unsuspecting Mexican public. When, in reality, it was a Mexican idea foisted on an unsuspecting Mexican public.
Again, very true. However, it’s not that simple that NAFTA was a failure simply because Mexico is worse off now than they were before since there were a lot of events that had nothing to do with NAFTA that pushed Mexico into its current circumstances. It’s like having a headache and the doctor telling you that some aspirin will help the pain. If you then step outside and get hit by a car, it’s a little bit unfair to claim that the aspirin was a failure since you’re now in more pain than you were before.
That said, I don’t want to come across as some sort of blind apologist for NAFTA’s shortcomings since there are several, not the least being the failure to implement the environmental and labor side agreements and complete ineffectiveness of the oversight commission established in the NAAEC.
I also don’t want to seem like someone willing to let Mexico stew in it’s own economic morass, because I think an economically healthy Mexico would be one of the best things to happen to the US and I think substantial aid to build up infrastructure would be a really smart investment.
I agree, however, I don’t think Huerta and Joel were running around trying to convince anyone that NAFTA was a good idea at the time, so you’ve built up a little strawman there.
Neurotik: *Fair enough, but when you say that “The US pressured Mexico to accept NAFTA’s trade liberalization provisions” it sounds like you’re saying NAFTA was a US idea that had to be foisted on an unsuspecting Mexican public. *
On rereading all the posts, I have to agree with you: it does sound as though I originally meant that it was the US government pressuring the Mexican government to come in on NAFTA, and I apologize for that misleading impression.
However, it’s not that simple that NAFTA was a failure simply because Mexico is worse off now than they were before since there were a lot of events that had nothing to do with NAFTA that pushed Mexico into its current circumstances.
I know; what I meant to imply is not that Mexico’s persistent problems prove NAFTA is a failure, but just that NAFTA has undeniably failed to fix Mexico’s persistent problems. (Moreover, while some of those non-NAFTA events were indeed unforeseeable at the time NAFTA advocates were touting it as a cure for Mexican poverty, some of them (like the ongoing corruption) were pretty damn foreseeable, but glossed over or ignored by the NAFTA-boosters.)
I agree, however, I don’t think Huerta and Joel were running around trying to convince anyone that NAFTA was a good idea at the time, so you’ve built up a little strawman there.
Yeah, I didn’t mean to say that Joel in particular was being a hypocrite on the topic. Obviously it was a poorly expressed opinion overall, and it was a hijack away from the designated thread topic anyway, and I think I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.
