Mexico & Nafta - February 2009 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Michael Hayden, the outgoing director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said on 16 January that Mexico was now, along with Iran, one of the major foreign policy problems for the incoming US president, Barack Obama. Hayden's comments underline how worried senior US policymakers are about the situation in Mexico. On 27 January, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said that he was “extremely worried" about the border with Mexico and the internal war against drug gangs in Mexico.

In a press conference, Mullen said: “"I am extremely concerned about (the US-Mexico) border and the drugs war, although it's not the only measure, but, if you look at the number of murders, kidnappings, and murders that have occurred over the last couple of years, and the rapid increase in that, that has all of our attention." Mullen went on to say: “I know General [Gene] Renuart (of the US Northern Command), who engages as our combatant commander with Mexico, shares that concern, and we want to do as much to assist and support our neighbour, in the that regard, as we possibly can."

According to Reforma, a Mexican newspaper which pitched the question about Mexico to Mullen, Mullen said that at least two of the 10 US chiefs-of-staff shared the view that the situation in Mexico was a major concern. What is significant is that no politician in the Obama administration has yet commented in public on Mexico. So far all the worries have been expressed by outgoing officials from the Bush administration.

These former policymakers have become increasingly outspoken about what is going on in Mexico ever since the publication of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC)'s annual report, on 15 December 2008. The NDIC, which is part of the US Department of Justice, claimed that Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations (DTOs) were the main criminal threat to the US.

In early January, the Bush administration's outgoing National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, became the first senior serving official to say that the US was extremely worried about the drug gangs' challenge to the Mexican government.

Hayden himself said that the gangs made Mexico as much as a challenge for Obama's foreign policy as Iran. He said that in his view Mexico was more of a problem than Iraq. Hayden handed over the CIA to Obama's appointee, Leon Panetta, on 20 January.

On 13 January, the Mexico City daily, El Universal, reported that the US Department of Defense rated Mexico and Pakistan as the two countries most likely to need a sudden deployment of US troops. This conclusion was buried in the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report, drawn up by the US Joint Forces Command.

Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director (who accompanied Hayden when they made their valedictory remarks on 16 January), added that the US had not (yet) drawn up any plans to deploy ground forces in Mexico. He said that the US strategy was to boost support for Mexican forces.

Mexico's interior minister, Fernando Gómez-Mont, argued on 14 January that the US was panicking: Gómez-Mont admitted that Mexico had problems but said it was dealing with them and that there was no danger of it becoming a security risk to the US.