Getting Acquainted

Every 12 years the election of a new president in the United States coincides with the presidential election in Mexico. Specialists in both countries usually see that coincidence as an opportunity for both nations to reassess their delicate relationship in order to improve it, or at least bring it up to date.

Sadly, those opportunities are not always exploited to the fullest. Consider the last time this occurred, in 1976, when Jimmy Carter and Jose Lopez Portillo were both preparing to take office. To be as charitable as possible, neither man lived up to the high expectations of his countrymen. And neither did much to improve relations between the two countries.

Carter, while certainly well-intentioned, never quite managed to grasp the complexity of our southern neighbor during his one term in the White House, particularly the sensitivity of Mexican political leaders in any kind of dealings with the United States.

Lopez Portillo was not much better. He took on Mexico’s presidential sash with an overblown sense of self-importance that was fed by Mexico’s discovery a few months earlier of massive oil reserves. In those days of rising energy prices, oil was a source of international clout. But the surge of oil wealth proved to be a mixed blessing for Mexico. Lopez Portillo spent much of it unwisely, and many of his countrymen are convinced that he also stole a lot of it.

With that unfortunate precedent close at hand, it would be a good idea to not expect too much out of the first meeting this week between President-elect George Bush and Mexico’s incoming president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who will be inaugurated on Dec. 1. For while each man has a genuine interest in the other’s country--Bush has Mexican relatives and business ties, while Salinas studied in the United States for many years and speaks good English--they both will take office under difficult economic and political conditions.

Salinas faces the more daunting task. Mexico must repay an international debt of more than$104 billion while oil prices continue to drop. The nation is exhausted after six years of harsh austerity imposed by outgoing President Miguel de la Madrid in order to repay the debt. Salinas wants to pursue free-market economic policies to generate the capital that Mexico needs to get its economy growing again. But, to put his plans into action, Salinas will have to get the cooperation of a Mexican public skeptical that he honestly won last summer’s presidential election, and vocal opposition groups in Mexico’s Congress convinced that he didn’t and determined to challenge the legitimacy of his government every step of the way.

Bush will have have an easier time of it, but only by comparison. He must find a way to deal with the budget deficit left by President Reagan. He must also gain the support and cooperation of Democrats who control Congress for a Republican Administration. Both factors will affect relations with Mexico. Among other negative effects, the deficit drives up the interest rates on our neighbor’s debt. And Congress has more than once created tension in the relationship between the two countries by taking independent stances on issues like drugs, trade and migration--stances often seen south of the border as anti-Mexican.

Spokesmen for both presidents-elect said that Tuesday’s meeting in Houston was a chance for the two men to get acquainted. That is useful. Given the mutual problems that they will have to deal with, Bush and Salinas should be prepared to talk with each other on a regular basis.