Increasingly citizens and governments of Caricom states are becoming conscious of the states of Latin America as players in the wider hemispheric arena in which we now recognize ourselves as living. Seventeen years ago the West Indian Commission report, Time for Action, alerted the region to the inevitability of our having to engage in closer relations with these hemispheric states, and the importance of restructuring our diplomacy and institutional arrangements to effectively accomplish this. In that regard, the commission proposed the establishment of an Association of Caribbean States which was as a new diplomatic location for all the states washing the Caribbean Sea. The innovation here was the creation of a direct organizational link, emanating from within the Caribbean itself, with Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. This indicated of course, an island, rather than a cultural-economic, definition of the Caribbean, therefore leaving out Guyana’s other immediate neighbour, Brazil.
Mexico and Venezuela in particular, had initiated an active diplomacy with Caricom states in the 1970s, when they developed complementary diplomatic positions on the issue of the rebalancing of relations between the Third World and the major, then Western powers, towards the creation of a New International Economic Order. In addition they shared particularly with Guyana and Jamaica common ideological positions on the major issue of that time – whether socialism or capitalism was the optimal path for Third World countries to follow. Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico and Venezuela were in the forefront in asserting that the commanding heights of the economy should come under ownership or predominant control of the state.
Mexico’s then President Echeverría and Venezuela’s Carlos Andrés Pérez then joined with Jamaica’s Manley in agreeing on the establishment of the so-called Javamex smelter, much to the displeasure of Trinidad’s Eric Williams who felt that any such initiative should first be undertaken within Caricom, as he had previously proposed to the leaders of Guyana and Jamaica. But the initiatives came to nothing, as economic clouds from a wider American recession descended on the hemisphere, and many of the states went through a period of severe economic decline which came to be known as the ‘the lost decade’ of the 1980s.
With severe recession at home both Mexico and Venezuela pulled in their horns, sought the assistance of the global financial institutions, and like Jamaica, succumbed to the Washington Consensus with its emphasis on liberalization of the economy and a consequent reduction of the role of the state, and on the importance of creating conditions for international competitiveness. This orientation had a decisive importance for Mexico which, under a younger leadership towards the end of the 1980s recognized that for Mexico, competitiveness meant most of all, competitiveness vis-à-vis its giant neighbour, the United States economy. What followed from this too, was a diplomatic orientation that suggested that pride of place must be given to economic diplomacy towards the United States, now deemed to be Mexico’s natural market and natural source of foreign investment. This stance as is well known led by 1994 to Mexico’s membership of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), following her decision to adhere to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), itself requiring a mandatory liberalization of the hitherto rather closed Mexico economy.
Coincident with this trend, the leadership of the long dominant Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) came under the influence of a younger leadership, some of whom, mainly trained in the United States, recognized that the US required that an opening of the Mexican political system be undertaken complementary to the opening of its economic system. That group, including a new generation of Presidents of the PRI having negotiated NAFTA, pursued this course with determination, and even moreso when, soon after joining NAFTA, the Mexican economy suffered a financial collapse from which, it is fair to say, the country was rescued by the transfer of substantial resources from the United States government.
From that period the central focus of the managers of the Mexican economy was on deriving investment from the United States under the favourable NAFTA conditions. In regional relations, particularly with its first and second defeats since its founding, by the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) led by Vicente Fox (2000) and now by President Felipe Calderón (2006), Mexican policy has been largely politically inward looking in the sense of not seeking any significant alliances with Third World countries. Governments have concentrated on a non-antagonistic policy towards the United States in the hemisphere, on seeking to pursue the Free Trade Area agreement which had been signed with the European Union, paying some attention, through her Plan Puebla to the fate of the Central American states who as adherents to the CBI stood, like Jamaica, to have, their positions in the US market damaged by Mexico’s membership of NAFTA. Though Mexico is a member of the Caribbean Development Bank, it cannot be said to have been particularly active or generous in the region, and certainly not in comparison with Venezuela under President Chávez.
For a while from the turn of the century, the main backlash from this policy of relative quiescence affected Cuba. Under an active Foreign Minister, Jorge Castañeda, during the first PAN administration, it was felt that Cuba should take cognizance of the new international trends focusing on human rights, a stance interpreted by the Cuban government as a virtual kowtowing by Mexico to the United States. This was a strong turnaround from a policy that had existed since the Cuban Revolution, when Mexico, with its long tradition of non-intervention strongly held that no attempts at intervention in Cuba by the US were permissible on any grounds. At that time too, Mexico had stood as the only real point of access to Cuba on the continent.
But of course, Mexico too, has watched the dual policy of the United States of allowing her agricultural producers and agricultural equipment manufactures and related goods to be sold in large quantities to Cuba, while insisting that other countries in the hemisphere should join her in maintaining an economic embargo against that country. A certain relaxation in relations has been taking place between Cuba and Mexico, after the difficult days of the Fox regime that is consonant with a general relaxation of relations in the rest of the hemisphere.
Viewing this relaxation in the diplomatic climate, with the formation of new alliances between Venezuela and some Latin states, and with an elevation of the stance of Brazil, now characterized as one of the main emerging economies, towards creating a new cohesion among hemispheric states, Mexico seems more anxious now to redefine her diplomatic location in the hemisphere, even within the terms of her close economic relationship with the US.
But still, that relationship with the US retains its focus, not only for economic reasons, though Mexico has felt the effects of the rise of protectionist influences in the United States, against even herself and Canada as members of NAFTA. The other salient reason is the continuing influence of the demand for drugs originating or passing through Mexico on their way to the United States. The consequent major rise in drugs-induced crime has become a substantial burden on Mexico, and it has had to raise its voice to a United States which for some time now has seemed to be indifferent to Mexico’s travail, putting the blame on Mexico as supplier, as against herself as purchaser.
The signs are that Mexico will, in relation to that drug trade, also develop a closer relationship with Cuba, in whose waters the trade has tended to find passage when pressures are exercised elsewhere.
In the context of all of this, we can expect Mexico to retain its emphasis on domestic matters, reacting only as they are influenced from outside, particularly the United States, and in the context of the present financial and economic crisis not to devote too much energy to seeking to compete with either Venezuela or Brazil in terms of influencing hemispheric relations, as long as she retains her status as one of the big three of Latin America. Mexico’s relationship with Belize will certainly grow, and Caricom can well focus more attention on the use of that country as our link to seeking influence with the emerging state within the North America economic frame.
