JP/6 /Proj

Bush Needs to Pay Attention to Mexico

Denise Dresser Project Syndicate

Is George Bush fiddling while Latin America's financial infrastructure burns? Many people in the region seem to think so, given the U.S. President's hands-off approach to Argentina's meltdown and to the gathering financial storm in Brazil.

So it is time to remind the American president of his words when he first entered the White House. Back then President Bush said that he was deeply committed to a prosperous, free and democratic Latin America. On occasion he even traveled south of the Rio Grande to prove it. But While Latin American and Hispanic voters in the US appreciate his intermittent interest, the people living in Latin America now need more than sweet nothings whispered in their ears.

If President Bush wants to be taken seriously in Latin America, he must bridge the divide between appearing concerned and actually being concerned about the fate of America's southern neighbors. The best place to start would be with Mexico, a victim of benign neglect since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last autumn.

Mexico is a bench-mark for how much the US is willing to do and not just say about a new sort of engagement with Latin America. If the Bush team can't sit down and resume negotiations on immigration and shared development with its "best friend" next door, chances are it isn't serious about remodeling the neighborhood. That neighborhood, the US administration should need no reminding, is on the verge of falling apart. Not only is Argentina imploding and Brazil reeling, but Colombia is exploding, Venezuela is regressing toward instability and Peru is not progressing.

Faced with a region spiraling out of control, President Bush urges Latin Americans to stand by free markets and stagger down the road of reform. Well, Mexico has been there and done that. Mexico privatized state enterprises and deregulated markets and opened its borders to free trade and moved towards democracy. Mexico played by the rules and other Latin American countries want to see that its possible to win by doing so. But to cement the success of the past, Mexico needs a commitment from the U.S. that goes beyond warm words and friendly faces.

Mexico's President Vicente Fox gambled on improved relations with the US and incurred political costs for doing so; now he needs a response that matches his bravado and thanks him for it. If Fox remains empty-handed for much longer, without new understandings on key bilateral problems to show for his efforts, both Mexicans and Latin Americans will know better than to place their bets on their unreliable northern neighbor.

They'll know that there's too much pain and too little gain. They'll wonder whether there truly is a reward at the end of the path of reform and restructuring. They'll think that the Bush vision is just another mirage. Hispanic voters in the U.S. will see through Bush's promises too.

How the U.S. treats Mexico will tell Latin Americans and their Hispanic brethren a lot about how they can expect to be treated. Given recent developments, or rather the lack thereof, those who are watching have reasons to be wary.

President Bush's approach to Mexico seems designed to seek the maximum symbolic impact with the minimum commitment of resources. Despite the photo opportunities and the persistence of warm, fuzzy noises, unresolved immigration issues remain on the back burner, or even worse, off the stove. Goodwill gestures - such as passage of a bill to allow Mexicans living illegally in the U.S. to obtain visas without returning home to obtain them - are insufficient. Today U.S.-Mexico relations are on hold, in a parenthesis within which appearances trump actions.

U.S.-Mexico relations will never be a success story until good atmospherics are accompanied by substantive changes. Mexico can't be marketed as a Latin American poster-child for a new way of acting toward and relating to the U.S. until rhetoric is translated into reality. For that to occur, negotiations over immigration must be taken out of the drawer they were relegated to when Presidents Fox and Bush met in Monterrey in June and be put back on the agenda. The U.S. and Mexico will only be able to build what President Bush called "smart borders for the 21st century" when they establish an orderly flow of people across them.

Mexico is one of the few models left in Latin America that combines democratic development with a market orientation. President Bush can help place Mexico permanently on that track. He can be the American president to win Mexico and the Hispanic vote it engenders in the US by developing a bilateral approach to immigration grounded in stable arrangements.

No country in the Western Hemisphere is more important to America than Mexico, and in order to engage the first, the Bush Administration must prove that it's paying serious attention to the second. Talking about eventual trade expansion with Latin America is good window dressing; restarting talks on immigration with Mexico would be good politics.

Denise Dresser is a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and Visiting Fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy, University of Southern California.