Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on July 01, 2008.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Merida Initiative: Behind the scenes
A couple weeks ago, the $400 million aid package known as the Merida Initiative, looked to be dying a slow, painful death. The U.S. Congress had saddled it with several human rights conditions that the Mexican government blasted as unacceptable. Few inside Mexico, including several lawmakers, had much hope the U.S. Congress would effectively agree to a do-over and strip their legislation of the offending conditions. Such a turn of events would represent a diplomatic coup in Mexico, and if there’s one thing the Mexican government hasn’t excelled at, it’s been influencing U.S. policy (see: eight years of Mexican frustration with U.S. immigration laws).
Yet last week, the U.S. Congress said “my bad” and rewrote its Merida Initiative package, stripping it of its most antagonizing conditions. How did this happen? The answer may have something to do with terrorism.
Publicly, President Felipe Calderon was pounding away at the U.S.’s responsibility in the drug war: after all, the Mexican president repeated, Mexican cops and officials were being slaughtered in an attempt to keep drugs from reaching the American market. Privately, the Mexican embassy in Washington D.C. was mounting a frantic lobbying campaign to save the aid package, an effort aimed primarily at Democratic congressmen, according to the El Universal newspaper.
But officials here say the key was the Interparliamentary Group Meeting in Monterrey at the beginning of June, which brought together Mexican and American lawmakers. Mexican deputies were able to convince their counterparts, including Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), of the importance of the package. Deputy Alejandro Chanona told El Universal that the most effective argument was that if both countries didn’t work together, it would open up the door to terrorism on the U.S.’s southern flank.
The about face by the U.S. Congress is now being interpreted in Mexico as “change of attitude” by the U.S. when it comes to the drug war, a sign that America has finally owned up to its responsibility to Mexico. Said Mexican Ambassador Jorge Montano: “I consider this decision a success in as much as it’s the first time the United States recognizes that it’s not a Mexican, or Central and South American problem, but that it needs to assume costs and responsibilities.”