The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

F OCUS ON L AT IN A MER ICA M EXICO ’ S A NGUISHED D ECADE 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 1 1 istory doesn’t con- sider Porfirio Diaz to have been a visionary in most re- spects, but the former Mexican president was prophetic when he lamented: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” The last decade has illustrated Diaz’s aphorism in ways he never could have imagined. The 21st century dawned auspiciously enough with elections in both countries. Because American presidents serve a four-year term and Mexican presidents serve for six, they are only elected concurrently once every 12 years. The last time that happened was in 2000, when Vicente Fox and George W. Bush were elected. The coincidence seemed fortuitous. The two new pres- idents were both former state governors, spoke some of each other’s language, represented conservative parties and, as rancher-businessmen, liked to project a macho, man-of-the-land image, complete with boots and cowboy hats. President Bush had already promised to devote more attention to Latin America, in general, and to Mexico, in particular. Many Mexicans and Americans alike hoped that his administration would promote a legislative solu- tion to regularize the northward flow of Mexican workers to meet U.S. demand, and to open a window to adjust the status of the six million undocumented Mexicans already in the country. The North American Free Trade Agree- ment, which entered into force in January 1994, had al- ready facilitated a doubling of bilateral trade, and Mexico had surpassed Japan as our second-largest trading partner, after Canada. Moreover, Fox’s election — the first opposition presi- dential victory after some 70 years of one-party rule — seemed to augur a meaningful democratic opening in Mexico. Only 12 years earlier, the 1988 presidential elec- tion was widely believed to have been stolen by the Insti- tutional Revolutionary Party (known in Spanish as the PRI) officials fromCuauhtemoc Cardenas, the candidate of the left. Since that time, however, new reforms had made election supervision truly independent, leveled the cam- paign playing field and instituted tamper-proof ID cards for voters. An opposition-party state governor was allowed to take office for the first time in 1989, in Baja California Norte; and in 1997 the opposition gained a majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the first time. T HE LAST TIME U.S. AND M EXICAN PRESIDENTS TOOK OFFICE IN THE SAME YEAR , 2000, MANY PREDICTED CLOSER RELATIONS . S O WHAT HAPPENED ? B Y T ED W ILKINSON H Ted Wilkinson, a Foreign Service officer from 1961 to 1996, served twice in Mexico City, the second time as min- ister counselor for political affairs from 1991 to 1994. He was AFSA president from 1989 to 1991 and currently chairs the Journal ’s editorial board.