The Foreign Service Journal, March 2003

third largest export market for agricultural products. As of 2000, Mexico was the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, and American’s fourth largest supplier. As good as the U.S.-Mexico relationship might sometimes appear, however, it remains prickly, even difficult, due to a host of local issues and quite a few international disagreements, even while the bottom line is one of collaboration. Both sides have come to realize that theirs is a classic “inter-mestic relationship,” one in which domestic issues have an impact on foreign relations and vice versa. The relationship is rooted in a pragmatic policy shaped over many years, to not allow specific problems to “contaminate” ties — essentially, an agreement to disagree. The U.S.-Mexico relationship today is the result of an evolutionary process of social and economic change: increased Mexican immigration to the U.S. following the Mexican economic crises in the 1980s, the large — more than a half million — American expatriate com- munity in Mexico and, in 2001, the arguably overplayed friendship between President Bush and the newly- elected Mexican president, Vicente Fox, who entered office fresh from an astounding electoral victory that changed the face of Mexican politics. Overplayed or not, the fast developing friendship between Fox and Bush, and the unprecedented initial prominence of the Mexican relationship in the Bush administration’s agenda, became simultaneously a stimulus and a challenge for the two secretaries of foreign affairs. Educated in the cold war climate and oriented to an east-west rivalry in geopolitical and military terms that more often than not was linked to the Middle East and Eastern Europe rather than to U.S. borders, Secretary Powell never appeared to have been a player in the relations between Mexico and the United States. But his previous positions, as National Security Advisor and Chief of Staff, showed us a man fast to learn and adept at playing the political game. These characteristics helped him to sieze the moment when, as a newly minted secretary of State, he found out that his presi- dent, George W. Bush, had only one card to play when talking about foreign relations: Mexico. His counterpart Jorge Castaneda, scion of a promi- nent diplomatic family in Mexico and a brilliant acade- mic, with a profound knowledge of American politics and a penchant for media manipulation, hoped to change the reactive — sometimes even passive — character of Mexico’s traditional foreign policy for a more proactive approach, where Mexico would take the initiative vis-à-vis the U.S. His frequent bickering with reporters, accusations of arrogance, the animosity of a left that felt betrayed and the very visible problems in his personal life, however, troubled Castaneda’s proposals from the outset. A Severe Blow After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, instead of moving the U.S.-Mexico relationship to a higher plane, Powell and Castaneda found themselves managing the fallout as the giddy days of high hopes gave way to disenchantment. The Bush administration’s preoccupation with the war on terrorism drove U.S. relations with Mexico off the stage, and doomed the much-hoped-for agreement on immigration that would have resulted in legalization for some 3.5 million undocumented Mexicans resident in the U.S. — an issue of great economic, political and even human rights significance in Mexico, where U.S. immigration policies are held responsible for hundreds of deaths on the border. “Powell was well intentioned, mostly because he understood that President Bush wanted a special rela- tionship. However, after September 11, his priorities and those of the U.S. government changed, as Mexico and the whole of Latin America were diminished,” says Andres Rozental, former Mexican under secretary of foreign relations and current chairman of the Mexican Council for International Relations. For Mexico this was a severe blow. When George W. Bush became president he promised a new relationship with Mexico and for a few months it appeared he was serious, thanks to the “discovery” of the potential Latino political power and the increased economic and social relations between both countries. Many Mexicans believed in the idea of a new special relation- ship and the possibility of “legalization.” When Mexico joined the U.N. Security Council in 2002, it made a bold move to project the image of a democratic government committed to a new interna- F O C U S 20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 3 Jose Carreno is the Washington correspondent for El Universal of Mexico.