There are grounds for optimism regarding the future of Mexico-US relations under the new administrations of President Enrique Peña Nieto and Barack Obama. Peña Nieto’s swift appointment of Eduardo Medina Mora as the new ambassador to the US was widely considered a positive sign. The former attorney general reputedly has an excellent relationship with the US anti-narcotics establishment. Given the importance of the Latino vote to his electoral victory and the return of the gun control debate to the top of the US domestic agenda, there has been more substance to the pledges on immigration and security made by Obama, who already has met both Peña Nieto and Medina Mora ahead of his inauguration for a second term on 20 January.
The often tricky task of maintaining good bilateral relations has been a priority for US and Mexican presidents for the past three decades. The usual three big issues dominated the initial 27 November meeting between Obama and President-elect Peña Nieto: security, trade and immigration. Peña Nieto said he would work with US officials to create a “safe, modern, connected…legal border” between the two countries.
Neither made any reference to the controversial issue of reforming drug policy: along with President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Guatemala’s President Otto Pérez Molina, Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) led calls for a major policy review last year (see sidebar).
Peña Nieto also sought to shift some of the intense focus away from the fight against drug-trafficking and organised crime and towards job creation and deeper economic, trade and energy cooperation within the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Bilateral trade is worth about US$500bn a year. The US is Mexico’s main trading partner and Mexico is the second export destination for the US and its third source of oil imports.
Peña Nieto’s efforts to shift the focus away from security echoes remarks made last month by Manlio Fabio Beltrones, the leader of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in the lower chamber of congress. Beltrones told the visiting US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on 14 December that the Mexican legislature was keen to “de-narcotise” relations with the US. He said Mexico wanted an emphasis on agreements designed to foster greater economic growth, security and a solution to migration issues. At the time however, Napolitano gave an interview with the leading daily, Reforma, in which she said that she did not envisage many changes in the Mérida Initiative, the security cooperation scheme launched by the US in 2008, under which Mexico has received US$750m worth of equipment.
The Latino vote (dominated by Mexicans) was decisive to Obama’s re-election [RM-12-12] and so he is under pressure to make good on immigration reform. His plan is expected in coming weeks, perhaps in the State of the Union address in early February. Officials cited by the New York Times (NYT) said the changes would be proposed in one comprehensive bill, resisting efforts by some Republicans to break the overhaul into smaller pieces. The NYT cited Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York (D), who chairs the senate subcommittee on immigration, refugees and border security, as saying that the bill would be comprehensive and would offer eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants willing to go through a lengthy process for their regularisation.
On 2 January, the Department of Homeland Security issued a ruling that speeds up the process of obtaining visas by undocumented immediate relatives of US citizens (spouses, children and parents). Under the ruling, individuals can now apply for a “provisional unlawful presence waiver” before they leave the US and attend immigrant visa interviews in their countries of origin. The process will be effective as of 4 March 2013. Under current law, immediate relatives of US citizens who are not eligible to adjust their status in the US to become lawful permanent residents must leave the US and obtain an immigrant visa abroad. First proposed in April last, the ruling is the government’s latest invocation of executive powers to revise immigration procedures, thereby sidestepping congress. In June last, Obama announced an executive action to defer deportation orders for about 800,000 young illegal immigrants that arrived in the US as children. That took effect on 15 August [RM-12-12].
A key appointment
Peña Nieto’s appointment of Medina Mora as the new envoy to Washington is seen as a positive. It was also a gesture to the opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) from which Medina Mora (until now the ambassador to the UK) hails. A former head of Mexico’s intelligence service, Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (Cisen) in 2000-2005, Medina Mora, whose new post was ratified by Mexico’s legislature on 9 January, was Calderón's first attorney general (2007-2009) and was fully behind his “war” on organised crime. Medina Mora attracted some controversy as attorney general.
These were allegations that Medina Mora knew about the notorious ‘Fast & Furious’ sting operation run by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), which allowed over 2,000 marked firearms to be smuggled into Mexico in 2009, but then lost track of them. Since it became public in 2010, the Fast & Furious operation has been one of the most sensitive issues in Mexico-US relations. On 4 November 2011 [RM-11-12] the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report stating that Medina Mora knew about the operation although he has repeatedly denied it. In his appearance before congress as part of his ratification process, Medina Mora again denied all knowledge of the operation.
Medina Mora’s first private meeting with Obama was on 14 January. In a White House daily press briefing after that meeting, Obama reiterated his commitment to migration reform. He also addressed another longstanding Mexican demand – tighter US gun control laws. This issue has come back to the fore in the US following the 14 December mass shooting of school children in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 died. Obama declared that the imposition of new restrictions to limit the public sale of military and assault weapons, as well as stricter background checks on individuals looking to buy firearms must be debated by the US Congress. Vice President Joe Biden - who represented the US at Peña Nieto’s 1 December inauguration - is coordinating the gun control proposals.
In his first local press conference on 10 January Medina Mora said the 14 December massacre had raised outrage to the point where previously unfeasible legal changes now might be possible. The previous Calderón administration made repeated calls for tighter gun control, particularly on the assault weapons that fuel the drug cartel-related violence south of the border. This is also a key demand of the prominent Mexican peace activist, Javier Sicilia, who last year toured the US calling for it to withdraw its support for Calderón’s ‘war’ on organised crime. The same day that Obama met Medina Mora, Sicilia turned up at the US embassy in Mexico to hand deliver letter addressed to President Obama, which he claimed had more than 50,000 signatures, calling on the US government to take measures to restrict the flow of weapons into Mexico.
Joint border inspection stations
The US and Mexican authorities are preparing to open a customs inspections station in Tijuana. The station, which is being built by the Mexican government, for the first time will allow US border officers to screen commercial shipments on Mexican soil before they reach the border. The new facility is aimed at reducing border waiting times for commercial trucks entering from Mexico through Otay Mesa which, after Laredo and El Paso, Texas, is the third-busiest commercial port of entry on the US-Mexico border. The inspection process Otay Mesa can take hours. Border officers from both countries will operate out of the same compound near the Otay Mesa border crossing.
The plan is to expedite the inspection of high-volume, low-risk commodities like strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce approved under the US Customs and Border Protection’s National Agriculture Release Program.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune, the project has involved complex bilateral agreements including sign-offs from many agencies on both sides and input from the union that represents Customs and Border Protection workers. The two governments have addressed sensitive security questions, such as whether US and Mexican officers would carry weapons when working on foreign soil. Rudy Camacho, a former customs director in San Diego, noted that commercial pre-clearance facilities on the US-Mexico have been discussed for years “but the will wasn’t there.”
- Calderón and the drugs legalisation debate
Former President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) has called for the US to find a solution to the pull US drug consumers exerted by the illegal drugs trade. In August 2011 he said that if the US is “determined or resigned to consume drugs, then let them find market alternatives that will cancel out the criminals’ stratospheric profits, or establish clear points of entry different from the Mexican border. This situation can no longer continue unchanged.” Commentators overwhelmingly understood ‘market alternatives’ as meaning ‘legalisation’. In line with his Colombian counterpart, President Juan Manuel Santos, Calderón was clear, however, that any policy changes must be agreed consensually.
- Other pre-clearance facilities
The Otay Mesa program is one of three pre-clearance pilot facilities set to open along the US-Mexico border. A second will be located in Texas, at Laredo International Airport, where Mexican customs officers would have authority to inspect Mexico-bound air shipments of components used in automotive and aeronautics manufacturing. The third proposed pre-clearance facility would see US customs officers working west of Ciudad Juárez at the massive, Taiwanese-owned Foxconn maquiladora campus near the port of entry at Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 1610 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
