SMU launches Texas-Mexico program during Gov. Abbott’s visit

MEXICO CITY As Mexico and Texas work to mend fences, Southern Methodist University on Tuesday launched a program aimed at becoming a bridge-maker between both sides.

In a ceremony at Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, SMU officials, alongside Gov. Greg Abbott, launched the Texas-Mexico program to research and promote policy-based discussions on economic, political and social ties. Texas has the 12th-largest economy in the world if it was a sovereign country, and Mexico has the 15th-largest economy.

The ceremony, as much of the governor’s three-day activities in Mexico, was closed off to the media, perhaps a sign of the delicate balancing act Abbott has undertaken as he tries to find a softer tone with Mexico, while keeping his political base happy back in Texas.

In a statement, SMU President R. Gerald Turner said the university and “our home city of Dallas are uniquely situated for this kind of study. We have the academic resources to bring clarity to issues that are frequently viewed as singular challenges rather than pieces of a puzzle connected by laws, economic factors and social patterns that may go back for generations. This is a tremendous opportunity for SMU and for Texas.”

The program is made possible through a $1 million gift from Gruma-Mission Foods, a Mexican corporation based in Dallas.

Juan Antonio Gonzalez Moreno, chairman and CEO of GRUMA, added: “Economics, energy, migration, culture, human capital, Internet technology and cyber security are obvious topics for study, but the door is open. We found in this program a tremendous opportunity to build a foundation for what should become the primary think tank on Texas-Mexico relations.”

In an interview in Mexico City before the event, Luisa del Rosal, SMU director of programs and external relations, called the program “unique. This will be the first time a research program will be dedicated to the very dynamic relationship between a state and a country. This reflects how unique Texas is and how important Mexico is in the larger context of the United States-Mexico relationship.”

Del Rosal added: “We want to influence key topics like energy, immigration, education, health policy, the cultural dynamic. We want to lead a conversation, a very needed discussion between both sides. In the end I hope this program will change perceptions about Mexico and about just how integrated both sides are.”

Abbott’s three-day visit to Mexico was to end Tuesday following a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. It remains unclear what the takeaways will be, other than changing the tone between Texas and Mexico, from harsh to kinder, and that in itself would be a remarkable achievement. No one wins, both sides have said, when Texas and Mexico bicker and in recent years the tone has turned nasty at least at the political level, dominated by talk of building walls, securing the border, and not so much the flow of goods and people.

SMU’s program, supporters said, will help defuse such tensions. Jose Octavio Tripp Villanueva, the Mexican consul general in Dallas and an early key proponent of the program, attended the launch ceremony Tuesday. He said the timing of the program is important as it guarantees “high-level meetings that will be fundamentally useful in decisions taken by Texas and Mexico in the future.”

Javier Trevino, Mexico’s undersecretary of education, called the program a “true cornerstone for fostering better relations between two neighbors, like Texas and Mexico ...,” and an example of how top universities “are contributing to the improvement of our bilateral relations and to actually make them work for the benefit of our people on both sides of the border.”

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