Thread: U.S.-Mexico tensions simmering

U.S.-Mexico tensions simmering

Drug violence, trade among thorny topics facing White House


NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE and ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:00 a.m. March 25, 2009

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's economy is being dragged down by the recession to the north. American addicts have turned Mexico into a drug superhighway, and the nation's police and soldiers are under assault from American guns. NAFTA promised 15 years ago that Mexican trucks would be allowed on U.S. roads, but Congress said they were unsafe.

U.S.-Mexican relations are in the midst of what can be described as a neighborly feud, one that stretches along a lengthy shared fence. That border fence, which has become a wall in some places, is another irritant.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Mexico today for what will be the first in a parade of visits by top administration officials, including President Barack Obama next month. They will find a country mired in a deepening slump, miffed by signs of protectionism in its largest trading partner and torn apart by a drug war for which many in Mexico blame customers in the United States.

There is plenty of angst on the other side. Many American communities are worried about drug violence spilling over the border, and about Mexican immigrants taking scarce jobs. That is forcing the Obama administration, already managing two wars and a deep recession, to fashion a new Mexico policy earlier than it might have wished.

Yesterday, Obama administration officials said that hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, are headed to the Southwest to keep the violence south of the border.

The multiagency plan includes nearly 500 agents and support personnel. However, officials did not say where the additional agents would come from or how long they would stay at the border.

Obama is finding that the challenges concerning Mexico touch on some of the thorniest issues in domestic politics, including immigration, free trade and gun control. The Bush administration disturbed relations by failing to deliver on its promise of an immigration overhaul. And the Obama administration has set off new tensions with a series of conflicting signals and false starts.

Some in the administration have suggested that the Mexican government is not in control of all of its territory, even as other officials praise President Felipe Calderón's resolve to fight the drug trade. Attorney General Eric Holder urged and then backed away from reinstituting a ban on sales of assault rifles, which are fueling the drug violence.

Obama has acknowledged contingency plans to deploy troops to the border if too much of the violence spilled over into the United States, but he said almost in the same breath that no such deployment was imminent.

“I think it's unacceptable if you've got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens,â€

Americans are mad, too.

U.S.-Mexican relations are in the midst of what can be described as a neighborly feud, one that stretches along a lengthy shared fence. That border fence, which has become a wall in some places, is another irritant.

California Unemployment is 15% or higher. When you consider many people are under-employed or working a part time job. When you also take into account many people in self-employment cannot collect unemployment insurance and are also not working (or working very much).

We have gutted our manufacturing capacity, flooded our good profession with foreign nationals and H1-B visa holders (most of which will not be returning home, so they are not really "temporary) and been invaded by cheap labor from Mexico.

That is why you cannot subsidize your income working a part time doing manual labor, mowing lawns, or most other services - because in our greed for cheap labor and/or blind eye to illegal immigration, we have not more "stand by" work for our teenagers and also why homelessness is getting so out of control.

It's not just a matter of "creating jobs" but stopping the export of them (outsourcing) and stopping the flow of illegal labor which is sapping our social infrastructure in educaiton, criminal justice and medical care.

[quote]For his part, Calderón has spoken of an American “campaignâ€

Mexico's economy is being dragged down by the recession to the north. American addicts have turned Mexico into a drug superhighway, and the nation's police and soldiers are under assault from American guns. NAFTA promised 15 years ago that Mexican trucks would be allowed on U.S. roads, but Congress said they were unsafe.

In the very first paragraph Berestein asserts:

1. It's our fault that mexico's economy is being dragged down.

2. American addicts are the reason for mexico being turned into a drug superhighway.

3. Police and soldiers are under assault from American guns. Gee, I guess these weapons pull their own triggers.

4. We apparently broke our promises (a pilot program is not a promise under NAFTA) under NAFTA to let unsafe mexican trucks on our roads.

Sounds like the rhetoric of juan hernandez or calderon. Who owns a controlling share of the NY Times as of now?

NoBueno: See, it's all our fault. Everything that goes wrong in Mexico is the fault of the U.S. And for the 10% of their population that lives illegally in the U.S., well that's our fault too.