Feb. 26, 2025
Let’s return the focus on Mexico (Part 1 was posted yesterday here)
When I was a correspondent here 40 years ago, immigration was already a hot button. Yet it was a time when guest worker programs allowed people to travel legally for seasonal work and then return home. Many came to the same employer year after year to help pick crops in the agricultural fields of California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Ask middle-age Mexican men in a rural area today if they know the United States, and invariably the answer is yes, with a quick description in usually broken English, of the cities and states where they worked. But they came and went every year. When the Reagan Administration began to clamp down on this kind of immigration and people had to run the risk of getting caught and deported and their names put on a watch list, they simply stayed and built parallel lives in the United States. I know that’s an oversimplification. But the evidence of a yearning for their homeland still exists in small towns all across Mexico. People will point to a well-built, sometimes new home, and they will say, “Oh yeah, that’s the Perez family’s—Miguel lives in California and sends money home.” In fact, if you study Mexico’s balance of payments, the flow of U.S. dollars from hard-working Mexicans sending money back to their families is one of the major sources of U.S. dollar currency reserves for the Mexican government (Unfortunately, another big chunk of those remittances is drug money being laundered). But the evidence shows an ongoing connection to their homeland, even if they have lived in America for decades.
Why not create a policy that allows Mexican citizens to move more freely back and forth? Mexicans love their country and will find ways to enjoy both their homeland and submit to the back-breaking jobs in the United States that help them build wealth back home. Before you dismiss this idea, there are restaurants in every major city in America that will have to shut down or curtail their offerings, if Mexicans are deported. Agricultural operations from California through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida that rely on immigrant labor to pick their crops will be harmed. (Recent news reports say that many crops are already not being picked because immigrants are afraid to show up for work out of fear ICE agents may be waiting to arrest them.) Or ask any industrial meat producer how they will cut your steaks if their workers don’t show. The solution is pretty simple, and with Mexico’s economic prowess increasing every day more feasible; give people the mechanism to travel back and forth. Simple.
The cross-border connection also highlights a cultural bond between the two nations. Some of these observations are obviously facile. But sometimes the obvious is the most revealing. I see more baseball-style hats of NFL and MLB teams here than I did in Westchester County, New York. Drive a car past any commercial strip here and you’ll see Walmart, Costco. McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Krispy Kreme, Home Depot, HEB…the list goes on and on. Amazon Mexico, just in the last five years, has gone from being a bit of a curiosity to my being able to order almost any item for delivery within a day or two, down to things like Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. Sky TV Mexico includes at least 8 NFL games every weekend day, plus Thursday, Friday and Monday night games. During the season, there are at least two MLB games broadcast daily and the same for NBA and NHL seasons. Or look at the other side of the border; Cinco de Mayo, guacamole, Corona beer, a boom in Tequila sales and Mexican restaurants on every fast food strip in America. My point? The two nations are intertwined culturally in more ways than Americans grasp. There’s also the obvious links in the western third of the United States where Spanish place names are commonplace. Why? They were part of Mexico until 1848.
There are also commercial links. Ford, which has assembly plants here, imports up to 40 percent of the parts used in final assembly of the cars from the United States, as does every other auto manufacturer.(https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11387.) The U.S. farm belt supplies Mexico with up to 40 percent of its domestic corn (https://www.ncga.com/stay-informed/media/the-corn-economy/article/2023/07/mexico-an-important-trade-destination-for-u-s-corn). The U.S. imports 637 million barrels of Mexican heavy crude oil and exports to Mexico 1.8 billion barrels of refined petroleum products, representing over 70 percent of Mexico’s consumption of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and jet fuel. In 2023 Mexico became the largest trading partner of the United States, nearly approaching $800 billion annually. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2024/02/07/2023-results-are-in-us-has-new-top-port-trade-partner-export-import/) The United States is the leading importer of Mexican goods, by a factor of 40x compared to #2 Canada. Get the picture? There are companies on both sides of the border that rely on each other to produce their goods.
There’s a more interesting point that is hard to explain, but my perception is based on 40 years of observation. Mexico’s one percent is rich, by standards that compare to America’s new billionaire class. They have properties around the world. Many own private jets. They drive luxury imported automobiles that have triple digit duties added to their price, pushing many luxury cars into six-figure plus territory. They send their children to be educated abroad, not only in America but in Europe, too. They employ dozens of people in just their personal life at home. But they also invest in their own country. They build manufacturing plants. They start new businesses. They construct real estate with an eye toward economic expansion. Of course, they have stern competition from the government, but the new Sheinbaum administration has been reaching out for joint ventures in things like green energy and transportation. All with an eye on economic growth. Mexicans still believe in Mexico.
What happens if the United States disrupts that balance? The Mexican economy will suffer, at the very least for a while during a period of transition where it seeks other markets for its products. The United States will suffer labor shortages in the service and agricultural industries where food will rot on the ground for lack of people to harvest and restaurants in big cities like New York will struggle to find dishwashers and back of the house employees. Factories will suffer layoffs because they won’t be able to acquire the necessary imported parts or labor to manufacture or those parts will cost more money because of tariffs. With tariffs imposed, American consumers will pay more for their consumer products regardless of their origin but from Mexico also. And finally, if misguided U.S. policies destabilize the Mexican economy, the specter of unrest could increase exponentially. Isn’t it obvious that a healthy Mexican economy benefits the United States? Vice-versa is equally important.
There’s an additional irrationality being bandied about by MAGA conservatives: invade Mexico to crush the cartels. It requires an extraordinarily myopic view of Latin American and Mexican history to view that as anything but moronic and counterproductive. Latin Americans have lived for nearly 200 years with the looming presence north of their border that has threatened their national sovereignty. Remember the Monroe Doctrine? To actually authorize and execute any kind of “invasion” of Mexico would have exactly the opposite of any desired effect, would lead to the deaths of American military men on Mexican soil and turn the border into something like Lebanon and Israel, not two neighbors who have co-existed peacefully at least since 1848 since the last U.S. invasion of Mexico. No one should ever underestimate Mexico’s will to defend itself and resist any and all threats.
My point is pretty simple. Mexico and the United States share one of the longest borders in the world. For centuries, the comment also was that it was one of the biggest contrasts between any two borders in the world; books were written like Alan Riding’s, Distant Neighbors, highlighting those differences. And yet today, the cultures are more than ever intertwined. Our similarities have diminished those differences. We are not one nation. And we are not the same culture. But we share a common goal, and a common destiny too, and a cultural amalgam that will only be stronger if we find ways to move closer together, not farther apart. That starts with compromise and cooperation, not insults and invasions.
That’s the Mexico I know. Americans would benefit from learning that it’s not just beach resorts and pyramids. Mexico is a thriving, complex culture with a Jewish woman president searching for a pathway to modernity for all its people. We should help them get there.
GORDON MOTT 
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