La Reforma
February 9, 2001
By Carlos Fuentes
Translated by Vicky Furio and Craig Adair

Mexico City -- The new presidents of Mexico and the United States of America have taken office at the same time. The most striking difference is that Vicente Fox has reached the presidency with a clear popular mandate, while George W. Bush has entered the White House under a cloud of suspicion, having lost the popular vote and gained the presidency thanks to a five-four vote by the Supreme Court.

One thing is certain: relations between Mexico and the US have never been closer. After a century and a half of often painful conflicts for Mexico, the prevailing sentiment, arrived at by the governments of Lázaro Cárdenas and Franklin D. Roosevelt during negotiations over petroleum expropriation, is that there will always be problems between Mexico and the US, but it will always be possible to resolve them through negotiations. For the most part, this principle has been the norm, and it is this which best serves us. The sullen Don Luis Cabrera once said, "In the military arena, the gringos will always beat us; at the negotiating table, it is we who will win."

There are four major topics of continuing Mexico-US negotiations. All four will be present at the next meeting of Vicente Fox and George W. Bush in Guanajuato.

Drugs: Eliminating the insulting annual certification and de-certification process would be the first step towards improved anti-narcotics collaboration. The importing country (the US and its forty million drug addicts) cannot judge or condemn the countries (Colombia and Mexico) that are merely responding (Long live the free market!) to U.S. demand. Beyond this outrageous oversimplification lie the proposals Jorge G. Castañeda put forth some time ago: we should evaluate what has worked and what hasn't worked in current policies and think about how markets and pricing mechanisms could make trafficking less lucrative, thereby reducing profits and corruption.

In addition, U.S. demands regarding drug lords and their mafias in Mexico should be matched by (hitherto weak) U.S. action against the drug lords and the mafias in the United States. In the end, as I see it, there is only one solution to this terrible scourge that affects us all: legalize the use of drugs, or decriminalize it. The problem is that this must be, without exception, a global decision. The advantage is that, although there will continue to be drug addicts, no one will get rich on their misfortune. When Franklin D. Roosevelt ended prohibition against alcohol in 1932, there were still drunks, but the Al Capones disappeared.

Jobs: The flow of Mexican workers into the United States is caused by two factors: the lack of work in Mexico and the need for workers in the U..S. Our workers fill jobs that no one else can fill in the country to the north. Without them, there would be shortages of food, services and tax revenues. Mexican workers pay taxes and contribute 28 billion dollars a year to the U.S. economy. In addition, they send six billion dollars a year to Mexico. But beyond the economic figures, the workers are just that, workers, not criminals. They take with them human rights and culture. They deserve protection and respect. The undocumented deserve a new U.S. amnesty law as the two governments reach new agreements modeled after the German Gastarbeiter Program for guest workers. In any case, the indispensable presence of the Mexican worker should not be subject to internal fluctuations in the U.S. Governor Pete Wilson of California used them as scapegoats in the difficult transition from the cold-war military economy to the post-industrial technological economy. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve, recently praised them as a factor in the progress of a U.S. economy that in the year 2000 reached its highest rate of expansion in fifty years. Now, on the threshold of a mini-recession, what will Greenspan and Bush say about the migratory work force? And what will Fox say, whose long-term goal is that not only merchandise but people will freely circulate in the world of globalization; not only things, but also workers?

Trade: Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico became the world's eighth exporter, with a jump in exports from 42 billion dollars in 1995 to 120 billion dollars in 1999. Mexico's trade with the United States in the last six years rose 113%, making us the number two exporter to the U.S. after Canada. Bilateral Mexico-US trade is up to a half a million dollars per minute and in 2004 should surpass the commercial traffic between the U.S. and Europe. Mexico, the number two market and number three supplier for the United States, has created two million new jobs in the country to the north. How will the mini-recession in the USA affect its economic relations with Mexico? The wave of lay-offs in recent weeks has already reached Mexico's Daimler-Chrysler. A few days ago, while visiting Los Angeles and New York, I could see that the dynamics of the U.S. economy are such and the speed of technological development so great, that it seems the U.S. is entering into a phase of fewer workers and better jobs. In addition, a "pent-up" demand for work exists in other companies that are anxious to absorb the currently unemployed. But an economic cold in the United States could cause pneumonia in Mexico.. That's why, in the Latin American Forum held in Mexico last November, Carlos Slim highlighted the need of the U.S. economy, which consumes a great deal and saves very little, to be assured of Latin American markets that can absorb U.S. products. This assurance, added Slim, requires long-term financing for Latin American countries as well as financing of our exports, which are geared towards the creation of infrastructure, housing, agro-livestock production and creating technological goods and services. In other words, the United States needs a Mexican (and Latin American) market that is ever more prosperous, fed and educated, in order to assure the U.S.'s own economic health. It seems to me that Carlos Slim's argument is a powerful weapon in the Fox-Bush encounter.

Energy: This topic will command attention in Guanajuato in light of the growing energy crisis in the United States. Prices are rising, and supply is dropping. California is about to go dark, and a huge black-out threatens the northeastern U.S. this summer. The demand for electricity is growing at an annual rate of six percent in the United States. Bush will propose a Common Energy Market for North America. ÊFox offers a new vision of border cooperation in electricity and natural gas. This may end up reconciling state-owned petroleum and electricity with its practical use to the advantage of the companies themselves -- modernizing and financing them without compromising national sovereignty. Or can't we have efficient national and public companies?

Returning to the first point in this article, the electoral victory of Vicente Fox gives Mexico an honorable democracy in the eyes of the U.S. government and its public. If with the governments of the PRI, which cast so much authoritarian suspicion ("the perfect dictatorship") on Mexico, Mexican diplomacy gracefully won its victories, today, more than ever, we have the dignity to negotiate with loftiness, discretion and legitimacy.