A Quiet U.S. Reminder to Mexico

Foreign diplomacy always requires tact. But occasionally the history of relations between certain countries is so sensitive that extra caution is required. Mexico and the United States are a classic case in point.

Right now our southern neighbor is going through some tense but hopeful times. Mexico is undergoing a largely peaceful, but nonetheless dramatic, revolution. Under the leadership of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and other young technocrats, a once-underdeveloped nation is making a great leap into the First World. In the process, Mexico is shedding many old or discredited practices, from protectionism to pervasive corruption.

But the changes have not come easily. Salinas’ reforms have met bureaucratic and political resistance. And in recent weeks the murder of front-running presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and an Indian uprising in southern Mexico have served as scary reminders of the violence that has accompanied past revolutions there. During a time of unexpected tension, messages of support and concern from Washington must be phrased with special care.

This week Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other U.S. officials are visiting Mexico City for a regularly scheduled meeting on bilateral relations. And while these biannual diplomatic sessions can be routine, the messages carried from Washington this year are decidedly not. Christopher is trying to convey the deep U.S. concern over Mexico’s turmoil without seeming to interfere in Mexican affairs. Thus he is being appropriately low-key in expressing the U.S. viewpoint.

But it would be a mistake for Mexican officials to miss the gentle warnings in some of Christopher’s remarks. For example, when he said in one speech that “to sustain trust in democracy, governments must attack the scourges of corruption . . .” he was not just talking about political payoffs. He was referring to concern that Mexico’s upcoming presidential election may not be honestly run.

Many Mexicans fear that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, unexpectedly set back by the murder of a genuinely popular candidate in Colosio, could turn to the heavy-handed fraud for which it is notorious in order to keep control of Mexico’s presidency. If that happens it would badly undermine Mexico’s international image. And that could have negative ramifications for implementation of the still-new North American Free Trade Agreement.

As much as anyone, Salinas was the architect of NAFTA. And Mexico’s Harvard-educated president is smart enough to know that the closer U.S.-Mexico relationship he envisioned under NAFTA meant that Mexicans would have to get used to hearing more from their opinionated U.S. neighbors about how things should be done. This is just the start. If anything, the Mexicans should be appreciative that--for now, in Warren Christopher--they are dealing with as tactful a diplomat as the United States has ever produced.