A wary friendship
Jun 19th 2008 | MEXICO CITY AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Amid bad temper and wounded pride, Mexico and the United States inch towards compromise on a plan to boost the fight against drug crime
Illustration by Satoshi KambayashiIN AMERICAN psyches, the war with Mexico of 1846-48 is muddled in with many others, and earns no more than a passing mention in history books. By contrast, every Mexican schoolchild is taught the story of the “boy heroes”—six military cadets who fought to the death rather than surrender to the invaders. Mexico lost nearly half its territory, comprising what is now the south-western United States. Of course relations have improved much since then, but history can still amplify everyday strains. Trade and cross-border investment have flourished under the North American Free-Trade Agreement of 1992. But recently the relationship has come to be defined more by illegal commerce—in people and especially in drugs.
At a meeting with George Bush in Mérida in March 2007, Felipe Calderón took an unusual step for a Mexican president: he asked the United States to help him fight the criminal mafias based in his country that supply much of his neighbour's drug habit. Under the “Mérida initiative”, the Bush administration promised $1.4 billion over three years in hardware (transport and surveillance planes, helicopters and communications systems) and training, with another $100m for Central America.
This was controversial in Mexico—but also in Washington, DC. In the hope of getting it approved swiftly, the administration tacked the aid onto a bill for supplementary funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats in Congress were angry that they were not consulted in more detail before the bill was drawn up.
In both the House and the Senate they responded with changes. These assure funding only for the first year, in which Mexico will get only $400m, subject to conditions. At one stage they also included a requirement that Mexican troops accused of abuses should face civilian trials. Another amendment proposed that human-rights groups should judge whether the aid should continue.
These drafts prompted Mexico's government to say that it would reject the aid. Under pressure from nationalists at home, officials had stipulated that they would neither accept American troops operating on their soil nor political conditions.
Weeks of negotiation between Mexico, the administration and the Democrats now seem close to achieving a compromise. The latest proposal says that 15% of the resources to be transferred will be subject to America's State Department confirming that Mexico is increasing the accountability of its police, and doing more to enforce existing laws that ban torture and require civilian trials of abuses by the security forces.
The debate was acrimonious. For many Mexicans it recalled a previous ritual (toned down in 2001) when the State Department “certified” each year whether other countries were co-operating in the “war” on drugs while the United States was patently failing to win this at home. The Mérida initiative is supposed to set the seal on a new era in which co-operation has replaced suspicion and name-calling.
In fact, if not in government rhetoric, it marks a small, incremental change. The sums involved are not large. Mexico already spends $2.5 billion a year fighting drugs—while American officials reckon that up to $20 billion of drug money crossed the border in cash alone last year. Mexican and American drug fighters already work closely together and share intelligence in a way that was previously unthinkable, notes an official from America's Department of Homeland Security.
But the Mexicans, as well as America's Democrats, have grumbles. Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico's attorney-general, has repeatedly asked the Americans to do more to stop the flow of illegal weapons from north to south. In response, the United States' Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has started sharing information with Mexican counterparts, says Thomas Shannon, the State Department's top official for Latin America.
Mr Calderón launched his crackdown against the drug gangs because he thought they were imperilling public safety and the functioning of the state. But can it work? Some people in both countries argue that drug prohibition is bound to fail. Many more students of the drug problem have concluded that money spent on demand reduction has a much bigger impact than attempts to curb supply.
More specifically, the aid can only work in the medium-term if Mexico builds an effective national police force. Mr Calderón has deployed thousands of army troops on a supposedly temporary—but apparently indefinite—basis against the drug gangs. The federal police force is partly composed of army units and officers on secondment. But the army is not trained or equipped to do preventative police work or investigation, says Juan Salgado, a policing specialist at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. He thinks American training might be better used to strengthen local police forces.
Mexican officials hope that the Mérida aid will bring some useful kit and send a message to the drug gangs that Mr Calderón has allies. It shows that at an official level at least, relations between Mexico and the United States are much more constructive than they were. But they remain less harmonious than those between, say, Canada and the United States. Mexico's inability to police itself, and America's prohibition of, but continued demand for, illegal migrants and drugs ensure that.
