A Matter of Trust

Mexican President Vicente Fox came to the United States with a mission and presented his case with eloquence. “No two nations are more important to the immediate prosperity and well-being of one another than Mexico and the United States,” he told Congress, echoing President Bush’s declaration that the U.S. “has no more important relationship in the world.”

Bold statement by Bush. Now, with Fox back in Mexico, Bush’s mission is to demonstrate to a doubtful American public why that is so. We wish him eloquence.

Many Americans still perceive the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico as a largely one-way street. They take, we give: mainly money and jobs, from the jobs that fled south to a region of lower wages to the ones lost to illegal immigrants who stream across the border to work in our restaurants and fields.

That perspective is no longer accurate, or at least it’s woefully incomplete. The economic integration between Mexico and the United States, begun during World War II and accelerated by the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, has reached a different stage and is growing each day. The U.S. economy absorbs those workers as quickly as they flood in. NAFTA may have opened the door to an exodus of U.S. businesses, but the quadrupling of U.S. exports to Mexico has been a boon to American workers and industries. Mexico and Canada are now our two biggest trading partners.

So far Bush has been short on the specifics of what he wants to accomplish with Mexico and how he plans to do it. If he wants to foster trust in the relationship with Mexico, he has to tell the American people what is it that he wants to do regarding the main issues currently being discussed with the Mexicans. From safety at the border to legalization of Mexicans already here illegally and on to a guest worker program.

Mexico’s president told Congress, “ ... It is time to bring Mexico up to date on all fronts, both within and beyond our borders. It is also time to bring Mexico up to date in its relations with the United States.” Bush needs to persuade Americans that Fox is sincere, that the relationship with Mexico warrants reciprocity.