Bilateral Context: Mexico and the United States

The sociopolitical and security impacts of the economic policies put in place since the 1970s to ease the effects of the capitalist crisis (a class war led by Reagan, Thatcher and their successors to halt a fall in profits) are being felt strongly in Mexico and the United States in the first decade of the 21st century. Calderón’s war against narcotrafficking and the leadership of Bush and Obama in the great financial crisis that erupted in 2008 are examples of this. They have resulted in a greater concentration of wealth and privilege among the ruling groups in the banking and financial sectors, in addition to huge subsidies for the military industrial complex, as well as public and private security entities.

Social conflict has increased: The war with drug traffickers alone has resulted in 28,000 casualties, with no prospect for change in the PRIAN (the collaboration between the Partido Revolucionario Institucional and Partido Acción Nacional political parties), nor the persistent exploitation of campesinos, workers and the middle class in Mexico. Meanwhile, in the United States, as productivity has collapsed, employment and quality of life for the general population has suffered a prolonged drop and the economy has been plundered.

Here, the White House has introduced a class war with its endorsement of Los Pinos (the seat of the Mexican presidency) and of a predatory oligarchy, using the Department of the Treasury and its surrogates like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. This has been carried out with loans that carry conditions favoring external investments, dismantling manufacturing processes (some emerging, some advanced) such as petrochemical manufacturing, where shifting important activities of Pemex to foreign contractors caused a collapse in the production of crude oil because of the maximum extraction policy imposed by the United States: a compliance measure derived from subordination to the juicy commissions given to the managers of World Bank loans.

The conditions of these loans continue to determine, in spite of the consequences, the actions of the branch secretaries that have dismantled the agricultural sector, the capital goods industry, the shipyards of the country and much more. They have attacked the unions and collective agreements, endangering jobs and preparing the base for, under management modernization, the dismemberment and auctioning off of the National Railway of Mexico, and they are looking to do the same with Pemex. The Federal Electricity Commission and its provider, Luz y Fuerzo Central, have already been liquidated.

To sustain the anti-popular and anti-national structure, loans and programs were implemented in the areas of justice and security administration. These changes were put in place to change the function of national defense and the police force with programs that facilitate the adoption of the types of intervention and occupation used by the United States in Colombia. The basis of the Mérida Initiative is the bi-nationalization of internal security. Foreign policy is being taken over by the United States as Calderón’s war is wearing out the logistical resources of the armed forces. And national defense, will it be assumed by the Northern Command? Will we become a de facto protectorate? In addition to the economic and judicial capitulation, are they not preparing to slowly bring into line the administration of justice through oral trials?

Since the ’90s, the pressure on northern states has increased: NAFTA sharpened the silent integration of economic, social, cultural and industrial links created over the years as part of the normal interactions of the southern United States with societies in northern Mexico. It is a very special fusion that is explosive, with walls, border militarization, anti-Mexican racism and processes that tend to separate northern Mexico from the rest of the country with regard to the economy and public administration, such as the processes sponsored by the World Bank in the 37 Mexican municipalities that border with the United States. This is a restructuring of the Mexican administration of cities, following the pattern of operation typical in the U.S.