Globalaffairs

15/04/09
Luis Guillermo Colín Villavicencio

On 25th and 26th March the USA Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Mexico. It was an official visit, the first one since she was appointed by President Barack Obama and it is in the context of a serial of visits being done since February to European and Asian countries.

Overall, the assessment of such visit is positive due to four aspects, however, there is a negative aspect related to the potential appointment of the North American diplomat Carlos Pascual as representative of such country in Mexico.

First of all, the meeting of Clinton with the President Calderon is framed in a high diplomatic level dialogue that has been initiated in February when President Calderon visited the still elected President Barack Obama. The participation of Foreign Secretary Espinosa in the meeting could have established a new personal relation between both. This will allow going forward in the definition and enforcement of the Binational Agenda Mexico-USA.

The second positive aspect is the end after two months of misunderstandings and misinterpreted speeches by mass media in both countries. From journalistic notes regarding death figures resulting from narcos war to the USA Army Forces command report that makes the situation of Mexico the same as that of Pakistan and it alerts that our country was close to be a “failed state” and also the bad image of the country with the publication of a new Mexican figure, the narco dealer Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, one of the richest men in the world according to Forbes magazine.

In the visit there is also an aspect that could be labeled as positive for Mexico: the acceptation by the USA Government, represented by Hillary Clinton, of the joint responsibility of such country in the war against drug trafficking. In other words, they accept that due to high drug demand of their population, our country has a capital problem. A survey conducted by the North American health services concluded that 25 million people under 12 years old are cocaine consumers in our neighboring country.

Finally, the meeting, and the visit of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano and the Attorney General, Holder to Mexico one week after the one of Clinton are smoothing the way for the visit of President Obama to Mexico on 16th and 17th April.

The negative aspect of the visit was the growing rumor that the USA has asked for approval to appoint as USA ambassador in Mexico, the Cuban origin diplomat and North American citizen Carlos Pascual. There is no problem with such appointment except for the fact that he is one of the American diplomats with more experience regarding “failed states!”. It seems contradictory the position of our neighboring country: on one hand, in speeches, their officials led by Clinton told us in our country that we were a “family”, that all places in Mexico were controlled by the Mexican government and that was time to establish a new “strategic alliance”. On the other hand, in fact, Obama is thinking about sending one of his best diplomats specialized in solving problems and keeping the peace in countries in hard situation and close to destabilize. We hope the visit of President Obama will not be full of contradictions as the one that I have noticed.