U.S.-Mexican Industrial Integration: The Road To Free Trade
Very good studies by Mexican and American authors compare the part that government policies and other factors have played in shaping the relations of the two countries' automobile, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, textile, computer and food industries. They show, according to the Mexican editor, "that the border is increasingly becoming not much more than an administrative barrier, albeit a cumbersome one, to industrial processes." Weintraub notes that the studies make clear "that the industrial strategies in the two countries are not completely separable."
Related
Once again the diplomatic relations of the United States and Mexico are troubled by controversy over the waters of the Colorado River. The latest dispute, though building up slowly, is potentially more serious than earlier ones because of the vast agricultural development of the Southwest and the urgency of hemispheric solidarity. Water with heavy salt content draining back into the Colorado from irrigated land in the United States is endangering Mexican crops further downstream. At a time when the Johnson Administration particularly wants the friendship of Mexico and the rest of Latin America, the controversy provides Mexican leftists with a popular rallying point for their attacks on their own government as well as that of the United States. Unfortunately, the treaty of 1944 which divided Colorado River water and guaranteed orderly development of the region was drawn in haste and without clear provision for handling certain obvious problems. These omissions are the source of the present quarrel and may become the basis for action by the World Court.
The United States is spreading its aid and efforts too thin in the developing world. It should focus on a small number of "pivotal states": countries whose fate determines the survival and success of the surrounding region and ultimately the stability of the international system. The list should include Mexico, Brazil, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. A discriminating strategy for shoring up the developing world is a wise way to address traditional security threats and new transnational issues; it might be thought of as the new, improved domino theory. If effective, it could forestall the move in Congress to wipe out nearly all foreign aid.
As he reflected on the ironies of his first term, Ronald Reagan must have found it remarkable that so many difficulties had arisen in what he thought of as America's front yard. In comparison, the 1970s must have come to seem almost idyllic, at least on the surface; Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela had grown and prospered, the Panama Canal issue had been resolved. But then a double crisis--conflict in Central America and near bankruptcy almost everywhere--exploded just as Reagan's watch began.
