Mexico Is Not a Functioning Democracy. It's Time for Washington to Pull the Plug John M. Ackerman - Foreign Policy
go to original February 24, 2016

Mexico Is The New America: Imagine a world where America has fallen as a world power and thousands of Americans cross the border to Mexico every day in search of work to provide for their families... (HappyHourSketch)

The United States is working under the false premise that Mexico is a functioning democracy, one where federal authorities are doing their best to strengthen public institutions and uproot rampant organized crime and corruption. It is thought that crime and corruption stem principally from broken local institutions and social decay. But we need to turn this logic on its head. The real problem is at the top, not the bottom, of the Mexican political system. And the key obstacles reside within the Mexican federal government.

The upcoming U.S. presidential elections, and the ongoing Democratic and Republican primaries, present an excellent opportunity to rethink relations between the United States and its neighbor to the south. Donald Trump has proposed closing the border. Hillary Clinton defends the status quo, grounded in a vicious cycle of complicities between economic and political elites on both sides of the border.

Both of these approaches are dead ends. Instead of isolating the United States further from the Mexican people, the next president should change gears by opening up the bilateral relationship to the active participation of civil society.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has called Mexicans who enter the United States illegally rapists who bring drugs, crime, and lots of problems. He's pledged to build a wall, paid for by Mexico, to keep them out. On Wednesday afternoon, just three days before the presidential primary in South Carolina, Pope Francis delivered a powerful counter to Trump's harsh rhetoric with a simple gesture.

Vice President Joe Biden´s Feb. 24 trip to Mexico to participate in the newly minted U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue will showcase what is wrong with the status quo. Rather than turning towards the Mexican people and sympathizing with their suffering at the hands of an authoritarian and violent regime, Biden is likely to limit his engagements to meetings with the Mexican oligarchs and top government officials responsible for the plight of Mexico’s vibrant civil society.

Mexico apparently falls into the same foreign policy category as Saudi Arabia. Just as the State Department is willing to overlook the gross human rights abuses of King Salman in the interests of oil and “regional stability,” it is equally willing to give Mexico´s Enrique Peña Nieto the benefit of the doubt even in the face of mounting evidence of the repressive and corrupt tendencies of his government and his party.

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