Merida Initiative, NAFTA renegotiation on Obama-Calderon Agenda Today

Don´t expect anything big to come out of today’s meeting between Mexican president Felipe Calderon and U.S. president-elect Barack Obama. The meeting is a courtesy call that past incoming presidents have established to give a nod to the close relationship between Mexico and the United States, an easy meeting considering the normally cordial relationship between the two countries.

This time there will be some thorny issues on the table though. Some of them will be discussed obliquely and others will be mutually acknowledged but explicitly ignored.

One will be Obama´s promise to renegotiate NAFTA. Calderon announced that the economic crisis will be on the agenda and he has often expressed his views that the solution is more free trade and upholding NAFTA. Obama´s calls to renegotiate the agreement have the Mexican president trembling in his boots. Since NAFTA went into effect in Mexico fifteen years ago, the nation´s economy has become dependent on the U.S. market and investment, with domestic small and medium industries forced out of business. The concentration of wealth and financial and productive power propelled by NAFTA created huge oligopolies that are the major pillars of support for Calderon’s National Action Party and severely weakened the small farmer and worker organizations that form the backbone of opposition to Calderon’s neoliberal policies and that call for immediate renegotiation. Calderón is so desperate to avoid renegotiation he issued a subtle threat, stating that if the U.S. renegotiates NAFTA, Mexican migrants will pour over it´s southern border.

The second hot-button issue is security, in particiular the Merida Initiative. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico is really worried that the Obama administration may not want to carry through with this dangerous boondoggle. Last Wednesday, it issued a statement that was picked up in the Mexican press as the release of $99 million of the $400 assigned to Mexico under the 2008 Merida initiative package. The embassy stated that the funds are for aircraft (helicopters and two CASA surveillance planes) and “non-intrusive inspection equipment” (ion scanners) and come out of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a Defense Department agency. Ambassador Tony Garza noted that the equipment could begin arriving in the fall. He stated that funds have also been released to USAID for training justice officials and civil society in transparency and accountability although no details were provided.

Turns out most all the available funds were actually released when the Letter of Agreement was signed on Dec. 3 and are at various points of the pipeline. When asked about the purpose of the recent press statement, an embassy spokesperson said that the Dec. 3 press reports had been unclear and the embassy wanted to show that the funds were flowing. But the core reason can be found in this statement from Amb. Tony Garza:

“I am confident that the incoming administration will remain committed to our shared goals with Mexico under the Merida Initiative, reducing the threat of crime and violence associated with narco-trafficking on both sides of the border. Our successes in this shared fight over the past years will help cement that commitment and continue building the secure, safe communities that Mexico and the United States deserve.”

The embassy staff is desperate to build U.S. and Mexican public opinion in favor of the initiative beforee it gets the boot. Their palpable nervousness no doubt stems from the fact that the Merida Initiative and Calderon’s war on drugs do not demonstrate “successes” and much less a move toward “secure, safe communities.” Last year the number of drug war-related violent deaths in Mexico doubled to over 5,800. The majority of the population believes the drug war is “unwinnable” when set up as a war between the government and the cartels, and since Calderon sent some 45,000 troops into the field many communities report feeling as threatened by the army as by the drug traffickers.

Although Obama supported the Merida Initiative in his Latin America platform, an announced cutback in planned foreign aid levels, public protest over the program in both countries, and heightened violence combined to push the incoming administration to rethink the aid package before the 2009 appropriations. Obama has indicated that a drug policy based on reducing demand rather that exclusively focusing on supply interdiction could be more effective. Meanwhile in Mexico calls increase for selected legalization to diminish the power and wealth of organized crime, expanded rehabilitation and prevention programs, and serious moves to reduce the flow of illegal arms from the U.S. Expect a very vague statement of "bilateral commitment" and "shared responsibility" to come out of the meeting.

Same for immigration. Obama will have to continue to handle this as a domestic issue due to the landmined politics of the issue in the U.S. Calderón knows this and won´t push hard Finally, an unspoken issue at the meeting will be Calderon’s role in a new Latin America policy. The Bush administration named Colombia and Mexico—the continent’s only two major countries ruled by the right—as bulwarks against what it saw as the pink tide in Latin America, a growing number of nations that elected left-center governments. While many experts lamented a policy of “ignoring” Latin America, in reality the administration carefully seeded division between the nations that support its policies of free trade and military hegemony and others that have embarked on a path toward independence of the modern-day Monroe Doctrine.

Now Obama will have to decide if he really wants to place political eggs in the basket of a president who arguably has minimal leadership in the region and lacks credibility among large segments of his own populace. The 2006 elections that brought Calderon to power were marked by accusations of fraud that the courts never resolved. Although Calderon has been far more effective than his predecessor in dealing with Congress, resentments from the elections still simmer, kept alive also by the increasing polarization between rich and poor in the country. Obama may be even less inclined to consider Calderon a point person for his policies in Latin American when he recalls Calderón's endorsement of rival John McCain for the presidency.

To his credit, Obama has shown a willingness to seek reconciliation within the hemisphere. He promised to meet with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela—defined as part of the “axis of evil” by Bush, and prioritize visits to Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina during the early part of his administration. With the aim of reconciliation in mind, he'd do well to take a stance of cool cordiality at today´s meeting.