Posted on 07/02/2006 3:07:55 PM PDT by garbageseeker
The reason why Mexico is having chilly relations with the United States because we are importing Mexico's poor and the American tapayer is paying for them. Mexico refused to do nothing about the corruption that is pervasive in all levels of government. There is a massive crime wave being committed more and more by Mexican nationals against American citizens. Could this also be another reason why there is a chill between Mexico and the United States?The author of the piece does not touch this.
What Mexico sees as indifference from the White House has combined with antagonism from U.S. groups battling illegal immigration to create a relationship that is strained and chilly.
"Relations with the U.S. look like they are going sour," said Sydney Weintraub, a Mexico expert at the Washington-based International Center for Strategic Studies.
Mexicans are insulted that Republican lawmakers have focused on sealing the border while stalling a Senate proposal that would provide a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants and their families. Mexico is also still stinging from U.S. criticism of its failure to control drug-related violence.
Washington, meanwhile, has not forgotten Mexico's opposition to the Iraq war, and insists that its southern neighbor is not doing enough to stem the tide of illegal migrants north, an issue that will remain front-and-center on the diplomatic agenda in what also is a U.S. election year.
"Immigration will remain an ever-larger and tougher bone of contention," said George Grayson of the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
With his eyes on an immigration accord, outgoing President Vicente Fox made it his mission during his six-year term to maintain a close relationship with the United States and his good friend President Bush — in spite of criticism at home that he was becoming Washington's puppet. Many Mexicans say his intimate ties won him few concrete benefits.
"The sobering effect of these experiences suggests that Mexico's next president will move the country away from Fox's tight embrace of the United States," wrote Pamela K. Starr of the New York think-tank Council on Foreign Relations.
Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promised to do just that. He says as president he would not "be the lackey of any foreign government" — a statement analysts say was a direct reference to the United States — and would return to Mexico's traditional noninterventionist foreign policy.
Felipe Calderon, the candidate of Fox's conservative party, would continue "close cooperation with the United States, but without a warm public embrace," Starr wrote.
Lopez Obrador also has promised to defy certain clauses of the North American Free Trade Agreement. He wants to renegotiate the agricultural sections of the accord, and says he will not allow elimination of tariffs on U.S. corn and beans scheduled for 2008.
Yet he also has said he would maintain a relationship "of respect and cooperation with the United States," and analysts agree he is unlikely to sign on to the harsh anti-U.S. rhetoric of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Bolivia's Evo Morales, given the economic and social importance of cross-border ties.
An estimated 11 million Mexicans live in the U.S., sending home about $20 billion every year, while Mexico directs nearly 90 percent of its exports to the United States.
Some have worried Lopez Obrador's election would upset U.S. markets. But those markets have been calmed by the candidate's economic advisers, who say his policies will be fiscally conservative despite his ideas for state intervention, protectionism and subsidies, said Riordan Roett, director of Western Hemisphere studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Although Washington would clearly prefer a victory by the Harvard-educated, free-trade-friendly Calderon, Bush has promised to work with whoever is
I read what I thought was an excerpt and got chest pains! I knew it was too good to be true coming from the Al AP source. Oh yeah, this is Bush's fault. ;-)
All the political hacks in Mexico are a bunch of corrupt criminals.
Much of Mexico is corrupt. That is why a rich country is poverty stricken. Mexico needs to be saved from itself.
You ain't seen nothing yet. If the Mexican Communist Party candidate, Lopez Obrador, wins the Presidential election today, you'll see our relations go to hell in a hand basket.
I do agree.
More reason to put up a fence.
If you have noticed this, they are driving brand new Ford trucks and SUVs
>Mexico refused to do nothing about the corruption<
I would say Mexico refused to do ANYthing about corruption, and unfortunately corruption does not stop at the borders, but extends all the way to Washington, D.C..
I certainly have noticed no cooling of the affection between the two countries on the gubmint level. I fear the lovefeast continues inspite of the outrage of the American people.
A Wall
More reason to put up a fence and mine fields.
"he will not allow elimination of tariffs"
Well, there might be an idea--let's put a tariff on every ILLEGAL we find and charge it back to the mexican government.
The Mexican government has done nothing about corruption. All the members of the Mexican Government pocket the oil money instead of spending it on the people.The officials in the government have let the drug barons take over the U.S./Mexican border with the assistance of the Mexican Army. They harbor Mexican nationals who commit crimes against American citizens, then proceed to blackmail U.S. law enforcement.
How about taxing every money order and money transfer sent to Mexico? Similar to the law in Georgia.Slap a 10 percent tax on every money transfer to Mexico.
I dunno.
You might want to post the article first and your comments about it at the bottom.
Maybe that's just me, and the way it's been done for a decade or so.
Hell, they don't want them in the first place, what makes you think they are going to pay for them now? The only way to reverse the flow is to let the democrats gain control and ruin the economy in '08 ;-)
Great advice, thank you very much.
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