RSS

Today marks the third annual trilateral summit between the United States, Canada, and Mexico on the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement (SPP). US President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Harper, and Mexican President Calderón are expected to discuss further aid to Mexico in the war on drugs that began when Calderón took over the presidency on December 1, 2006.

Who’s Part of the Atlantic Community?
The European press has reported sparingly on the summit, with the perspective of an outsider that has no stake in the debate. There has been little talk about a common North American political project. When Europeans think of the Atlantic Community, we think of Europe and the United States. There was a fairly successful movement in the 1990s to include a focus on Canada, when studying North-Atlantic relations, which has added value to the discourse. Mexico, however, remains under-appreciated in US, Canadian, and European policy discourse.

Inexplicably Overlooked
Mexico should be the most important topic on the US foreign policy agenda and a high priority for the transatlantic relationship. It is neither. Even the development community does not focus on Mexico anymore, since it has outgrown the status of a developing country. With the United States, Canada and Mexico now coordinating efforts on both security and trade, why is this US border country absent from discussions on European cooperation with North America?

The simple answer might be closest to the truth: Mexico has always been analyzed as part of the portfolio of development studies, Latin American studies, and leftist political theory. The country has not figured into security studies, geo-politics, or any other subfield of high politics of interest to self-described “Atlanticists.”

Obvious Importance
With a population of 105 million, Mexico is an interesting case of an ignored elephant. Its per-capita GDP is around 10 times that of China. Mexico is the third-largest US trading partner, barely behind China, and a member of the OECD. Around 10% of US citizens are of Mexican descent, and another 10 to 20 million illegal aliens participate in the US economy. Mexico is one of the main oil-producing countries of the world and the main supplier for illegal drugs in the United States. The richest man in the world is from Mexico, and Mexican multinational companies like CEMEX control most of the market for “building solutions” in both the US and Germany. And German industries, especially automotive companies, have established major manufacturing bases in Mexico to comply with NAFTA local content rules and to be closer to the US market.

Building New Bridges
How can we get Mexico onto the transatlantic agenda? A lot can be learned from the classic Atlantic bridge idea, where institutions like the German Marshall Fund, US Fulbright Commission, and the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies have created a sustainable community of like-minded experts. Efforts like the Mexico Project by the Harvard Kennedy School and EGAP-Tec de Monterrey or the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American studies are a step in the right direction.

Now all that is missing are policy entrepreneurs on the European side. We need more Atlanticists who are willing to bridge the gap and enrich the discourse with a Mexican perspective.


Parts of this article first appeared as an entry on the author’s blog.

Philipp S. Mueller is Associate Professor at the Graduate School for Public Administration and Public Policy of Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico (EGAP-Tec de Monterrey) and adjunct professor at the Salzburg School of Management. He is currently on academic leave pursuing research on governance in network society. Until July 2007 he was director of the Master?s in Public Administration and Public Policy (MAP) and before 2003, senior research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.