Marxist Axis of Evil
Posted on 05/28/2003 6:32:20 PM PDT by Cacique
Mexico-Brazil Alignment: Fox's New Foreign Policy Goal
Summary
Mexican President Vicente Fox has announced a strategic alignment between Mexico and Brazil to advance Latin America's common interests and to support each country's efforts to secure permanent seats in the United Nations and Group of Eight. From the view of Mexican and Brazilian policymakers, the alignment makes sense. However, it also reflects Fox's frustration with the Bush administration's indifference to his efforts to bind Mexico more closely to the United States through a bilateral immigration agreement.
Analysis
Mexican President Vicente Fox began his six-year term in office in August 2000 by announcing a new foreign policy that would align Mexico more closely with the United States and "decouple" the country from the rest of Latin America. However, Fox reversed course this week, unveiling through an interview with the Financial Times an assertive new foreign policy that aligns his country with Brazil, proposes Mexican membership in the Group of Eight and seeks a permanent seat on a restructured and expanded U.N. Security Council.
In a separate interview with the Washington Post, Fox also urged the United States to implement a bilateral immigration agreement that would legalize the status of more than 3 million Mexicans living in the United States without resident visas. The pact also would provide renewable temporary visas to tens of thousands of migrant workers who work in the United States for only a few months each year. Moreover, Fox openly criticized U.S. President George W. Bush's lack of interest in discussing any immigration agreement since Sept. 11, 2001, even though Mexican officials have done everything the Bush administration has requested to reinforce security along the border.
Mexico's desire to become a permanent member of both the G8 and the U.N. Security Council is not recent. The country's foreign policy elites have dreamed of it for many years. However, Fox's decision to align Mexico with Brazil under President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva -- so that both countries can "speak for the region with one voice" -- is a new development that could affect Mexican relations with the United States and some U.S. interests in Latin America.
From Mexico and Brazil's perspective, it makes sense for Latin America's two largest economies to align more closely in pursuit of shared economic priorities, as in seeking to dismantle U.S., European and Asian agricultural trade barriers. However, Fox's decision to align Mexico with Brazil also reflects his deep frustration for what he perceives as the Bush administration's indifference to his efforts to secure an immigration agreement for Mexican nationals working in the United States.
Fox defined such an agreement at the outset of his government as his foreign policy priority -- the legacy of his presidency. However, more than two years of lobbying have not budged the issue in Washington, especially since Sept. 11. As a result, by aligning Mexico with Brazil, Fox is seeking to rebuild his own battered image inside Mexico, where many critics think he flirted too much with Washington and got nothing in return.
Meanwhile, Fox is playing catch-up with da Silva who, since assuming the presidency less than six months ago, has floated several major initiatives. These include relaunching the South America's Mercosur customs union, negotiating strategic alliances with the Argentine and Venezuelan governments and giving each of those governments $1 billion in credit to finance exports through the state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).
Fox's alignment with da Silva in fact could improve U.S.- Brazilian relations, since Mexico would be in a position to bring Brasilia and Washington closer on regional trade-related issues that also interest Mexican investors and exporters. However, a tight alignment on issues that concern Brasilia -- such as Colombia and Cuba -- could bring Mexico into diplomatic conflict with the United States.
The escalating Colombian conflict and its potential impact on the Brazilian Amazon region might worry da Silva. However, he is even more concerned about U.S. military aid flowing into Colombia, and sees the aid as the potential precursor to an expanding U.S. military presence in the Andean region. Like many Brazilians, da Silva and his foreign policy advisers view such a possibility as a threat to their country's territorial integrity along its largely unguarded western borders, where the Andes mountain range starts to rise out of the Amazon rain forest.
As a result, da Silva might seek Mexican support in opposing U.S. efforts to expand its military aid either to Colombia or other Andean ridge countries. This could place Fox in a bind, since he has pledged to cooperate with Washington in the war on al Qaeda; the U.S. State Department has designated Colombia's rebel and paramilitary groups as international terrorist groups. It's also likely that da Silva will expect Fox's support, or at least his silence, as Brazil's president seeks to include Cuban leader Fidel Castro as a permanent participant in future Group of Rio summits.
Fox's new foreign policy, and his new alignment with da Silva, will be on display at this weekend's G8 summit in the French city of Evian. Both leaders will attend at the personal invitation of the summit's host, French President Jacques Chirac. Fox will meet privately with Bush, but also has meetings scheduled with the leaders of France, China, India and Britain.
Fox also will join da Silva at Evian to propose the creation of an international infrastructure development fund for Latin America, which da Silva defined on May 27 as an essential prerequisite for moving forward with the United States on talks to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Like other Latin American countries, Mexico's infrastructure is inadequate for the country's growth needs, and financial constraints limit the capacity of regional governments to build new infrastructure. As a result, a development fund like the one da Silva will propose likely would appeal to Mexican officials.
Despite his new foreign policy, Fox still considers the United States to be Mexico's most important economic ally and views strong bilateral ties with Washington as a foreign policy priority. However, a key goal of Fox's policy is to diversify the country's trade, investment and political relations to reduce his country's high dependency on the United States for nearly 90 percent of Mexican exports.
While that economic dependency is unlikely to drop much -- even with an aggressive trade and investment diversification strategy -- a foreign policy that keeps the United States at a greater distance and more strongly asserts Mexico's independence likely will win political kudos from nationalist Mexican voters who have been upset since mid-2000 by what they perceived as Mexico City's excessively close alignment with Washington.
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This alliance of leftist anti-American and anti-capitalist regimes surrounding us does not bode well. I think it's time for regime change and to export our Republican (founding father's ideology) for a change. Instead of importing cheap labor and anti-American radicals into our borders.
As I see it, we should be weary of all of this nonsense. The number of 3 million illegal aliens is totally bogus and it keeps being promoted by the press. If as most accounts say, we have 10,000 illegal aliens crossing the border every day. That comes out to 3.6 million in just one year to over 36 million in 10 years. Even assuming that figure is wrong by 50% that still makes 18 million illegals in ten years. With a reproductive rate of 6.5 children per couple it's easy to see how we Americans will go the way of the Serbs in Kosovo in a few generations.
It's time that these scholars and Washington policy wonks start differentiating between "immigration" and "colonization".
Of course the Mexicans will have to fight for the leftovers with the Muslims who have 7+ kids per couple.
We are in a losing battle here with illegals. Legislatively, we win one, and lose three. All across the country states are rewarding illegal aliens at our expense. Doing so is only encouraging more to try and sneak in. But I guess only the taxpayers are capable of seeing that.
Both parties are in the hands of corporatists whose only loyalty is to profits at the expense of the common good.
The democrats known only too well that the more they hand out welfare and goodies to the peons the greater the chance that they will establish a permanent constituency. The welfare serves only one purpose, to keep the lower classes poor and the ruling class in power. Latin America is a failure for precisely this reason. Argentina has been sliding downhill since Juan Peron established the welfare state in 1948. Like addicted heroin addicts they can't see that their addiction to the welfare state is progressively relegating them to the dark ages. This last batch of migrants are bringing this failed mentality and mindset to this country and the radical left couldn't be happier.
We are following them on the same path and we do so at our peril. In twenty years the US will be relegated to a third world country if we continue to export our jobs and technology abroad. High tech was supposed to be the next stage in our economic development. Now we are exporting those jobs as well to China and India. We have already started exporting white collar middle level management jobs that can be done electronically via a world LAN. We will be left as Americans as over educated, underpaid, underemployed people competing for dish-washing jobs with illegal mexican aliens willing to work for less than the minimum wage.
That is unfortunately where the brave new world is leading us.
Don't you think that this important part of the world should be getting more coverage?
Don't you think that this important part of the world should be getting more coverage?
I think the importance these days is even more critical when one considers the enormous number of illegal aliens who hail from these areas.
The legal immigrants usually hail from the upper middle class and lower upper classes. The illegals are from the lower classes who have been subjected to radical communist propaganda and agitation. This is also true of middle class university graduates as well. Think our universities are a haven for communists? Look at the major departments in most Latin American Universities and they make American radical professors look tame by comparison.
There is also a racial element in all of this. Indigenous peoples are the fastest growing segment in most South American countries and there is a deep and festering resentment of europeans (caucasians) which are exploited by the radical left to promote their agenda. The United States is seen as the biggest European oppressor.
In my conversations with illegal mexicans and central americans ( who happen to be cholos or mestizos) that have invaded my neighborhood, this resentment is apparent and they don't even hide from other hispanics. Naturally when I speak spanish they assume I already know it anyway. They have a deep seated hatred for all things white which they brought along from their own cultures.
Most Americans are un-fazed by all of this, since it is a subculture that surrounds them but which they are unaware of. Groups such as Aztlan on the other hand have been very deft at exploiting it.
We had better wake up to this because demographics will make these hispanics the largest ethnic group by the end of the century. This has enormous implications in both politics and economics and rest assured that racial arsonists and pimps will exploit it to the hilt unless we get a handle on it now rather than later.
Well, I guess I should disclose right up front that "by the end of the century," I'm going to be 150 years old. LOL. So, I'm not sure that my opinion about how this country should operate then should count for much.
I am aware generally of the demographic trends that you mention. Interestingly enough, a fellow recently suggested to me that "the real reason we're allowing so many young folks to immigrate illegally into this country is because they're gonna be necessary to solve our demographic problems with Social Security." LOL. I'm not sure if he's right or not, but it does seem to me that the government is making less than a supreme effort to enforce our immigration laws.
Very interesting post. Thank you.
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