The South Will Rise Again Mexico
Leaders | Mexico and the United States
The rise of Mexico
America needs to look again at its increasingly important neighbor
Adjacent week the leaders of N America's two most populous countries are due to meet for a neighbourly conversation in Washington, DC. The re-elected Barack Obama and Mexico'southward president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, have enough to talk about: United mexican states is irresolute in ways that will profoundly bear on its big northern neighbour, and unless America rethinks its outdated picture of life beyond the border, both countries run a risk forgoing the benefits promised by United mexican states'due south rise.
The White House does not spend much time looking south. During six hours of televised entrada debates this year, neither Mr Obama nor his vice-president mentioned Mexico directly. That is boggling. One in ten Mexican citizens lives in the The states. Include their American-born descendants and y'all have about 33m people (or effectually a tenth of America's population). And Mexico itself is more the bloody appendix of American imaginations. In terms of GDP it ranks only alee of South Korea. In 2011 the Mexican economic system grew faster than Brazil'due south—and will exercise so once again in 2012.
Yet Americans are gloomy about Mexico, and then is their government: three years ago Pentagon analysts warned that Mexico risked becoming a "failed state". As our special report in this issue explains, that is wildly wrong. In fact, United mexican states's economic system and club are doing pretty well. Even the violence, full-bodied in a few areas, looks as if it is starting to abate.
Mañana in Mexico
The first place where Americans volition notice these changes is in their shopping malls. Communist china (with more than 60 mentions in the presidential debates) is by far the biggest source of America's imports. But wages in Chinese factories have quintupled in the past x years and the oil price has trebled, inducing manufacturers focused on the American market to set upwards closer to habitation. United mexican states is already the world'due south biggest exporter of flat-screen televisions, BlackBerrys and fridge-freezers, and is climbing up the rankings in cars, aerospace and more than. On nowadays trends, past 2018 America will import more than from Mexico than from whatever other country. "Fabricated in Communist china" is giving way to "Hecho en México".
The doorway for those imports is a two,000-mile edge, the earth's busiest. Yet some American politicians are doing their best to block it, out of fear of being swamped by immigrants. They could hardly be more than wrong. Fewer Mexicans now motility to the Usa than come back s. America's fragile economy (with an unemployment rate virtually twice every bit loftier as Mexico'due south) has dampened arrivals and hastened departures. Meanwhile, the make-up of Mexican migration is irresolute. North of the edge, legal Mexican residents probably now outnumber undocumented ones. The human tide may plough forth with the American economy, but the supply of potential border-hoppers has plunged: whereas in the 1960s the average Mexican woman had vii children, she now has two. Within a decade Mexico'south fertility rate will fall beneath America'southward.
Undervaluing merchandise and overestimating immigration has led to bad policies. Since September 11th 2001, crossing the border has taken hours where information technology once took minutes, raising costs for Mexican manufacturers (and thus for American consumers). Daytrips have fallen past well-nigh one-half. More crossing-points and fewer onerous checks would speed things up on the American side; pre-clearance of containers and passengers could be improved if Mexico were less touchy about having American officers on its soil (something which Canada does not mind). Afterward an election in which 70% of Latinos voted for Mr Obama, fifty-fifty America's "wetback"-bashing Republicans should now meet the need for immigration-law reform.
No time for a siesta
The least certain part of Mexico'southward brighter mañana concerns security. This year has seen a small drop in murders. Some hotspots, such every bit Ciudad Juárez, have improved dramatically. A tertiary of Mexico has a lower murder rate than Louisiana, America'south virtually murderous state. Yet, the "cartels" volition remain strong while two atmospheric condition concord. The first is that America imports drugs—on which its citizens spend billions—which it insists must remain illegal, while standing to allow the traffickers to buy assault weapons freely. American politicians should heed the words of Felipe Calderón, Mexico's outgoing president, who afterwards six years and 60,000 deaths says information technology is "impossible" to cease the drug trade.
Compare the murder rate and body count of each Mexican state against unabridged countries with our interactive equivalents map
The second black spot is that Mexican policing remains weak. If Mr Peña is to proceed his promise to halve the murder charge per unit, he must exist more than constructive than his predecessor in expanding the federal constabulary and improving their counterparts at state level. That is just one of several issues that will test Mr Peña. He cannot achieve his ambition to raise Mexico's annual growth rate to six% past relying solely on consign manufacturing. Upping the tempo requires liberalising or scrapping state-run energy monopolies, which fail to exploit potentially vast oil and gas reserves. Boosting United mexican states's poor productivity means forcing contest on a cosy bunch of private near-monopolies—starting with telecoms, tv, cement and nutrient and drink. That means upsetting the tycoons who backed his campaign.
This newspaper gave Mr Peña a lukewarm endorsement before July'southward election, praising his economic plans but warning that his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ran Mexico in an authoritarian and sometimes corrupt mode for most of the 20th century, has not inverse much. Facing down interests within his own political party may exist Mr Peña'due south hardest chore. The caput of the oil workers' union is a PRI senator. The teachers' union, which is friendly with the party, is blocking progress in instruction. A new labour reform has been diluted by PRI congressmen with union links.
Mr Peña, a good performer on the stump, should appeal beyond the PRI to a broad consensus for change amidst Mexicans. Time volition tell if he measures up to the task. But the changes in Mexico go beyond the new occupant of Los Pinos. The country is poised to become America's new workshop. If the neighbours desire to brand the most of that, it is time for them to take another expect over the edge.
This commodity appeared in the Leaders department of the impress edition under the headline "The rising of Mexico"
From the November 24th 2012 edition
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Explore the editionSource: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2012/11/24/the-rise-of-mexico
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