ALMOST 25 years ago a Mexican president, Carlos Salinas, took a historic decision. He decreed that his country’s future lay in setting aside its fear and resentment of its mighty neighbour to the north and embracing economic integration with the United States through the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement underpinned the modernisation of part of Mexico’s economy. So the imminent arrival in the White House of Donald Trump, a critic of NAFTA who threatens to build a migrant-blocking wall between the two countries, looks like a disaster for Mexico.
It would be easy to say that Mr Salinas made the wrong bet, as his many critics charged at the time. He didn’t. For Mexico, geography is destiny. Anyway, with $1.4bn in goods crossing the border each day, the country’s economy is now inextricably bound to that of the United States. So what is Mexico to do? Today’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who was excoriated when he invited Candidate Trump to visit, trusts that he can interest President Trump in a “modernisation” of NAFTA. He has some leverage: Mexican non-co-operation on trade, drugs and migrants could hurt the United...Continue reading
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