In Mexico, another call for more porous borders was unfolding, which tended to converge with Canada's. Within months of his inauguration in December 2000, President Vicente Fox launched the idea of going beyond NAFTA's economic integration. Counseled by his foreign relations secretary Jorge G. Castañeda (in turn, in constant dialogue with Pastor), Fox proposed Mexico's version of NAFTA Plus, with a limited but important objective for Mexico. NAFTA had boosted the flow of goods, services, and capital in the trinational area but, from Mexico's perspective, it had omitted a key factor: its abundant, poorly-paid, and unemployed labor force. Fox proposed labor mobility for Mexicans within a greater "North America," in exchange for certain concessions to the United States.
During NAFTA negotiations in the early 90s, the United States had flatly refused to consider the idea of greater integration of the labor markets. Such a scenario would have been violently rejected by certain influential (and racist) sectors of public opinion, and NAFTA would have been a nonstarter.
In 2001, seven years into NAFTA, Fox took bold proposals to his initial meetings with George W. Bush and laid them out with an aplomb that left Washington observers stunned. The New York Times commented, after one visit by Fox to Washington, "rarely has a foreign leader shown up on the South Lawn of the White House and declared that he and the president of the United States must remake the fundamental rules that have governed his country's uneasy relationship with the United States -- and get it done in the next four months."
Theoretically, at least, Fox was right. In totally open markets, labor should enjoy the same freedom of movement that NAFTA had given capital. Mexico's "competitive advantage" is precisely its abundant labor force, but it was facing increasingly formidable barriers to reaching job vacancies in the United States. Perhaps not by accident, NAFTA's start in 1994 coincided with the first U.S. Border Patrol militarized "operations" to seal the border with Mexico. The blatant discrimination of Mexico's "competitive advantage" had to be eliminated, Fox insisted. The New York Times article insinuates that Bush understood and accepted Fox's daring proposals ("endorsing his principles," the Times says), although dissenting with him over the timeframe and the political feasibility of pushing them forward.
Few U.S. policymakers perceived a contradiction between "operations" on the U.S. side to seal the border and an acceptance by Bush to review migratory policy options. On the one hand, the status quo was not working. Border Patrol "operations" had not detained Mexican migration -- in fact it had tripled during the NAFTA years. Still, border crossings had become more dangerous, leading to the tragic death of 4,000 migrants in 10 years. In addition, there were American companies that were begging for cheap, non-unionized workers to fill the "4-D" jobs (dangerous, dirty, dull, domestic) that Americans eschew. And finally both leaders, new to their posts at the time, were disposed to break with policies from previous administrations.
It is quite likely that Fox arrived in Washington ready for tradeoffs. In exchange for U.S. acceptance of more Mexican workers, Mexico would "seal" its own southern border, to detain and deport migrants from other regions, especially Central Americans, whose presence in the United States had skyrocketed since Hurricane Mitch devastated the region in 1998.
In fact, this measure was implemented in July 2001 by Plan Sur (South Plan), whereby Mexico militarized its border with Guatemala and Belize, and the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec through which all Central American migrants had to traverse. Fox had asked for a special and privileged treatment for Mexicans, in exchange for hunting down migrants from third countries before they could make their way to the U.S. border. The measure had the effect of "displacing" tasks of the U.S. southern border to southern Mexico.
Fox's government formalized the idea of creating an exclusive and excluding "North America space," to which Mexico would gain entry, in essence by turning its back on Latin America. Mexico's northward-looking bias became explicit with Fox, but it merely culminated a policy that began during the administration of Mexico's first president of unquestionable neoliberal extraction, Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988).
Fox likely called on Bush with more than Plan Sur to offer -- possibly the privatization of PEMEX (the state oil company) or the Federal Electricity Commission. Although efforts to privatize these two state-run companies have stalled in the legislature, Fox has not flinched from putting Mexico's oil at the service of American interests, notably by upping exports to the United States in the weeks previous to the invasion of Iraq.
In any event, the Fox-Bush summit took place in a radically different historic moment. The presidents met in Washington on September 5, 2001, six days before 9/11. Since then the Fox government has retreated to Mexico's traditional role vis-à-vis its neighbor, i.e., with few exceptions, letting the United States establish the agenda, conditions, and timeframes.
In the new post-9/11 environment, Fox's bold migratory and integrationist proposals were abruptly shelved by the Bush administration. The ensuing retreat towards a passive role for Mexican foreign policy, particularly regarding the only important foreign interlocutor for Mexico, contributed to Castañeda's resignation in January 2003.
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Thanks for the ping, hope to have time to read all of this today.