New opportunity in U.S.-Mexican affairs

“U.S. relations with Mexico are about to take another turn, and with some careful nurturing on both sides of the border, the prospects for building a mature, vibrant bilateral relationship have not been better in years. But the window is small, and the time to do so is now.

For too long, U.S. relations with our southern neighbor have been defined by one issue at a time. In the 1980s, the debt crisis. In the 1990s, first NAFTA then drugs. Since 2001, immigration. And each time, with the exception of a brief period of time between the 2000 election of Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox and Sept. 11, the relationship has been defined primarily by the “negative” agenda, rather than a positive agenda under which both nations seek actively to build a more cooperative relationship. The Nov. 7 U.S. election and the July 2006 election of Felipe Calderon, who will be inaugurated as Mexico’s new president on Friday, offer a significant opportunity to build the relationship in broader terms. It is an opportunity that the incoming Calderon government has already taken several concrete steps to seize. If the United States reciprocates, the long-term results may well be profound.”

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