Diplomacy Ditched : Petty U.S. Plan for the Border Hits a Nerve in Mexico

The “ditch crisis” in U.S.-Mexican relations will probably not go down in the annals of binational relations as one of the more substantive confrontations between the two countries. But it does illustrate the complexities and contradictions of Mexican-American ties.

To begin with, there is confusion about the origin of the proposal to construct a ditch along the Otay Mesa area of the U.S.-Mexican border, just east of Tijuana. The Mexican government insists that when the matter was taken up by the bilateral International Boundary and Water Commission, the American delegates referred to the ditch exclusively in terms of drainage (both rain water and industrial waste) and never mentioned an immigration or drug connection. But the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has been quoted in the Mexican press to the effect that the primary purpose of the ditch is border security: to interdict the illegal entry to the United States of vehicles transporting drugs and undocumented aliens. It still hasn’t been explained how a ditch a few miles long, a few feet wide and few feet deep would seriously affect the flow of people, goods or anything else across a 2,000-mile-long border.

More substantively, though, the ditch affair has served a useful purpose in Mexico. It is giving the new Salinas administration a crash course in U.S.-Mexican relations--and just in time, because a number of excessive expectations with regard to the future of U.S. policy toward Mexico had been surfacing, particularly within the government. The point is not that the ditch signals a Bush Administration policy different from what was expected here;the ditch is not that important. What is important is how it has changed Mexico’s perception: Instead of a honeymoon, good will and cooperation, the United States is building a subterranean Berlin Wall to keep Mexicans out.

The outcries since the issue surfaced last week have been deafening, in the traditional orchestrated way. Spokesmen for the government party, intellectuals, congressmen and senators denounced the ditch as an unacceptable act of aggression against Mexico and as a unilateral, useless and unfriendly act by the United States. The members or leaders of the opposition most willing to be manipulated by the government rushed to its defense in the face of American hostility, and the press in general (with the exception of the more honest, independent media) have run banner headlines decrying the latest episode of American perfidy.

Obviously the entire effort is organized by the government, knowing as it does that the best way to get the United States to back off from the ditch is to point to a groundswell of anti-American public opinion. The incriminating sentiment stems from both real indignation that is felt by the Mexican people over such American practices and from the encouragement that this indignation gets from the Mexican authorities. The latter thus avoid a direct confrontation with the United States, which a request to drop the ditch would entail, but, hopefully, stop its construction anyway.

The catch, of course, is that the deterioration in U.S.-Mexican relations that was made evident by the commotion concerning the ditch contrasts sharply with the subliminal claim by Salinas that his government will put those relations on a more even keel and avoid confrontation with the neighbor to the north. It also contradicts the implicit message that Salinas has been sending to the Mexican people with regard to George Bush and Mexico’s foreign debt: that the new Administration will be more sympathetic to Mexico’s financial plight than its predecessor was. Of course, the ditch and the debt have little to do with each other, but persuading the readers of Mexican newspapers and the viewers of Mexican television of thatis another matter.

Many Mexicans, whether in high office or elsewhere, believe that the apparently unfriendly things that the United States does to Mexico stem from high-level decisions made with a degree of ill will. Conversely, they believe that if there is good will at the top, everything else will follow. Thus the ditch is seen as something decided at the White House, a perception that would change only if the White House rules against its construction. If the ditch plan proceeds, it will quickly bury the perception that the inauguration of two new presidents signaled a new beginning, or at least a honeymoon, in relations between the two countries.

Even if the ditch plan is dropped, it will serve as a useful reminder for the Salinas administration that there are few things as unpredictable and micromanageableas U.S.-Mexican relations. The best intentions and the best-laid plans tend to get lost in the thicket of myriad bilateral links and exchanges. For whoever is watching in Washington, the incident should be taken as proof that even “modern” Mexican governments will resort to traditional demagogic practices for domestic purposes or in times of tension with the United States. And they will do so because, whatever Mexico’s “modernizers” may say to their American counterparts or sympathizers, few things get the Mexican people as quickly aroused as incidents--or even a perception--of American arrogance or mistreatment. The ditch is simply one more instance, a very minor but illustrative one, in a long history of all of these.