Mexico & Nafta - June 2008 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Mexico is looming rather more largely than usual in US politicians' minds for two reasons. The first is the unprecedented level of drug-related violence in northern Mexico. This affects the US in two ways: the first is that the normal cross-border flow of people is being disrupted; the second is that US senators and congressmen are considering the anti-drugs package, known as the Iniciativa Mérida, proposed by the US administration. Both houses of congress have made their own suggestions on how the package should be delivered. The second reason why Mexico is more important than usual to US politicians is that Mexican-Americans are, potentially, a decisive (and so far uncommitted) constituency in the US electorate. Mexican Americans' apparent hostility to Barack Obama, the likely Democratic party presidential candidate, means that California, traditionally a Democrat bastion, figures in the list of battleground states for the presidential election in November. California, with 57 votes in the presidential electoral college, is the biggest single prize in the election.

US concerns about the violence in Mexico are percolating up the US government hierarchy. Until May, the only senior government figure to express concern about the violent events south of the border was the US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza.

That changed on 22 May when Robert Mueller, the director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said that he was concerned about the rate of gang killings in Mexico. However, Mueller said that he did not expect the violence to spill across the border.

Roger Maier, from the US Office of Customs and Border Protection in El Paso, noted that the number of US citizens crossing into Ciudad Juárez fell substantially over the weekend of 23-25 May. Usually, over 100,000 vehicles cross the border each weekend. By way of example, Maier noted that on the weekend of 16-18 May, 107,500 vehicles crossed from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso. However, on the weekend of 23-25 May, only 98,500 vehicles made the trip. He said that the number of pedestrians crossing the border fell even more heavily, from 81,500 to 61,400. The drop followed an apparent email warning from gangsters in Mexico that they would attack shopping centres and other public spaces that weekend.

The Iniciativa Mérida
Senators and congressmen in the US say that Mexico will definitely get a large dollop of military aid from the US, though whether it will be as much as the US administration originally recommended (US$1.5bn over three years) remains moot. In Mexico, the Iniciativa Mérida package is under criticism from politicians of all sides.

The Left argues that US aid should come with stricter human rights conditions attached. Critics argue that the Mexican government is sleepwalking into a version of the Plan Colombia, which assigned Colombia US financial resources and military aid to fight the guerrilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).

The Mexican Right argues that this is nonsense. It points out, correctly, that the US is not committing nearly as much money to Plan Colombia (around US$5bn over 10 years). Rightwing politicians fear that the US may only give Mexico limited military aid for one year only. Prominent figures such as Jorge Castañeda, President Vicente Fox's first foreign minister, argue that the Iniciativa Mérida is too unambitious to be effective. By his estimates, the US will eventually give Mexico around US$350m for one year in military aid, but will not respond to its request for modern helicopters (needed for effective anti-drugs and security operations). Moreover, he believes that the package will come with a raft of conditions on human rights that will make its renewal by the US Congress unlikely.

The spin from the US is that the aid package is a done deal. The US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, said at the end of May that congressional members have expressed differences of opinion about how best to achieve victory in the fight against the drug cartels. Garza noted that the proposal approved by the House of Representatives recommended US$400m for Mexico, with an additional US$61.5m for Central America. In addition, a separate House “authorizing bill" instructs the US government to intensify efforts to stem the flow of precursor chemicals, bulk cash, and the so-called “iron-river" of arms illegally flowing south. Technically this proposal is separate from the Iniciativa Mérida proposals.

Garza noted that the Senate version of the Iniciativa Mérida recommended US$350m for Mexico, with an additional US$100m for Central America.

Both the House and Senate versions require the US government to address Mexico's concerns about the flow of arms into Mexico and the significant demand for illicit drugs in the US. And each has also asked for updates on efforts in Mexico to prevent human rights abuses by security forces engaged in battling the drug cartels, among other issues. Garza is stressing to Mexican officials that these congressional requests for information and analysis are part of the oversight process that Congress routinely exercises over the US executive branch of government. These requests are not, the ambassador says, a demand that the U.S. “certify" Mexico's behaviour or performance. 

• What is in the Iniciativa Mérida?

The exact composition of the US aid is still unclear. The US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, said at the end of May that the aid would include: “inspection equipment and canine teams used to identify drugs, bulk cash and arms in vehicles and cargo, helicopters and surveillance aircraft, various technologies to modernise Mexico's investigative capabilities, police training, technical assistance for civil society, and support for improving administration of justice and rule of law. The big question from Mexico's point of view is exactly how many and what sort of helicopters it will get.

Democrats in the US senate, notably Senator Patrick Leahy (Vermont), chairman of the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee, argue that the Iniciativa Mérida package should be seen as the start of a long term commitment by the US to support Mexico in dealing with the shared problem of the drug trade. In effect, the Democrat position in the Senate addresses some of the criticisms raised by Right wing critics of the Iniciativa in Mexico.

President George W Bush originally wanted US$550m to go to Mexico and Central America in fiscal year 2008 as part of the the government's War Supplemental Appropriations bill. Mexico would receive US$500m, mostly for eight Bell transport helicopters and two surveillance aircraft similar to those used by the US Coast Guard. Training and maintenance would be included, and the agreement allows "end-use-monitoring" by the US to prevent misuse of these assets. This is an unprecedented concession from the Mexican government.

Other big-ticket items include ion scanners, night vision goggles, and non-intrusive inspection equipment. The agreement places considerable emphasis on data management, software programs, and secure communications for processing of drug intelligence. The package also provides training for forensics, polygraph testing, and human rights training. These provisions would help Mexico tighten internal security, guard against corruption, and modernize law enforcement practices.

Also in the original package was US$50m for countries in the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta). It seems that Panama, which is not a signatory to Cafta but which has its own pending FTA with the US, will also be eligible for US aid under this part of the package. Most of this money will go towards fighting the Mara gangs which are particularly active in El Salvador; Guatemala and Honduras.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are moving towards a final vote on the package.  Significantly, Howard Berman (D, California), the chairman of the House foreign relations committee, secured his committee's support on 14 May for a series of amendments which will boost the package to US$1.6bn over three years. The White House originally sought US$1.4bn. 

US politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties are becoming concerned about the vicious upswing in gang killings in Mexico. Their concern is hardly disinterested: Mexican-Americans are an important (some US political analysts say the most important) unattached electoral constituency in the US. Around 65% of the 10m Hispanic voters in the US have links to Mexico. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has offered his support for the aid package as a way of bolstering his support with Mexican-Americans.

McCain had lost a lot of his goodwill with Mexican-Americans by recanting his previous support for a liberal immigration reform. McCain was obliged to do this to shore up his support with the Republican Right. This tactical move was designed to prevent a Ross Perot-style populist filching a significant percentage of natural Republican votes: Perot's involvement in the 1992 US election split the rightwing vote and allowed Bill Clinton to defeat President George H W Bush.

Rightwing Republicans, such as Ted Poe, a Texas congressman, wanted the House of Representatives' foreign affairs committee to make more radical changes to the Iniciativa Mérida. What Poe wanted was for the US to spend more money at home to prevent weapons from reaching Mexican drug gangs. His amendment, which would have cut the US aid going to Mexico and Central America, was defeated.

The big problem for the Iniciativa Mérida, despite the largely bipartisan support for the package, is that it is part of the US's US$161bn in supplemental war spending. The Republican administration wants the bulk of this money to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats do not want much, if any, money to go there. The risk is that President Bush may veto whatever Supplemental War spending package emerges from Congress. It is possible, however, that both Houses could assemble a two-thirds majority to override the presidential veto as they did at the end of May over a controversial agricultural support package for US farmers. It was vetoed by President Bush but Congress overrode the veto. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans wanted to antagonise farmers in an election year.