The Relationship Between the United States and Mexico Is Dangerously on the Edge Arturo Sarukhan - The Washington Post
go to original February 2, 2017

On Behalf of America, an Apology | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann (GQ)

Over the past two decades, Mexico and the United States — once distant neighbors — have profoundly transformed their relationship. Driven first by the huge socioeconomic convergence triggered by the North American Free Trade Agreement, and then by the growing and more assertive security and intelligence cooperation that arose out of the imperatives of a post-9/11 world, both countries have built a strategic and forward-looking partnership predicated on shared responsibility and on the premise that if one nation succeeded, the other one would, too.

This does not mean that everything since has been peachy. A stark asymmetry of power will always persist between both countries. The past two decades of constructive and maturing relations have undoubtedly been punctuated by occasional moments of disagreement and mistakes committed by both capitals. Nonetheless, a dramatic shift occurred, both in substance and in tone. Successive governments of different political stripes on either side of the border came to comprehend that our two nations played a unique role for each other’s well-being that fed into the public narrative regarding the relationship. Octavio Paz, one of Mexico’s Nobel laureates, once wrote that Mexican and Americans had a hard time understanding one another because Americans didn’t know how to listen and Mexicans didn’t know how to speak up. The changes wrought in the relationship transformed the dynamics in that conversation, with Americans tuning in and Mexicans learning how to engage their partner to the north.

Dangerously and sadly — particularly for someone such as myself who has spent a lifetime seeking to deepen and widen U.S.-Mexico ties — the relationship is today on a knife’s edge. Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, “alternative facts” regarding trade with Mexico or the dynamics along our common border along with a toxic anti-Mexican narrative — potentially changing the accepted rules of engagement in U.S. political discourse and public policy toward its southern partner — have seriously damaged perceptions on both sides of the Rio Grande, inflaming passions and propelling jingoism and unhelpful rhetoric.

But it took only one week of bilateral engagement between the new U.S. administration and Mexico to throw the relationship into a tailspin. An ambush of Mexican cabinet officials in Washington for initial conversations with senior White House staff, coupled with a Sinatra Doctrine/”my way or the highway” approach by President Trump toward a partner and ally, has jeopardized a mutually beneficial relationship and opened a profound diplomatic rift.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

Arturo Sarukhan was Mexico’s ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2013

Related: 'So Far from God, so Close to the US': Mexico's Troubled Past with Its Northern Neighbor (The Guardian)

Related: 'Viva Mexico!': Trump Wall Awakens Mexican Patriotism (teleSUR)

Related: George Lopez: ‘Tangerine’ Trump Took Six Days to Have U.S. at War with Mexico (The Inquisitr)

Related: A Map of the Many Countries President Trump Has Rankled in His First Two Weeks (The Washington Post)

Related: Vicente Fox Says "Trump Has Brought Back a Very Strong Mexican Spirit" (Latina)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!