by Alex Meneses Miyashita
Andrés Rozental
Foreign policy analysts say it’s not clear yet which presidential candidate Boliviawould try to strengthen more the bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico.
They generally agreed that Mexico will not be a priority during the campaign and it will take some time before the elected candidate will act upon the bilateral relationship, as he will focus on domestic issues first.
Andres Rozental, Mexico ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1997 and a current fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that until now neither candidate has talked about Mexico in concrete terms.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have expressed their intent to visit Mexico at some point during their campaigns.
“Obama evidently arouses a lot of sympathy in Mexico,” Rozental said, because of his biracial background, young age and his underdog status against Hillary Clinton.
But, he said, neither candidate has expressed at length a position on issues of mutual interest or beneficial to Mexico.
Mexicans who follow the U.S. elections say they have more confidence in Democrat Barack Obama than Republican John McCain to address foreign-policy, 30 percent to 19 percent, according to a Pew Research Center survey released June 12.
This trend favoring Obama by considerable margins was seen in the majority of the 24 countries surveyed by the Center.
Rozental said that on the outset, McCain might be more in tune with the bilateral agenda as he might be more familiar with the country’s southern neighbor.
At the same time, he said, McCain’s switch of position on immigration during the campaign is viewed unfavorably in Mexico and will likely dent his support among U.S. Hispanic voters.
Jim Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico during the Bill Clinton Administration, predicted that both candidates, in spite of policy differences on bilateral issues, would not be too far apart on their positions regarding them.
On trade, McCain supports NAFTA while Obama has called for renegotiation on labor and environmental concerns. Jones said those can be addressed without renegotiating the treaty.
On immigration, both candidates will likely emphasize border security fi rst, a guest worker program and eventually the status of the undocumented population, Jones said. He added that both candidates would talk about cooperating with Mexico to stem border violence.
But, he emphasized, the greatest debate during the campaign will not be on these, but issues such as Iraq and the economy.
Rozental said the huge challenge both candidates face in moving the bilateral relationship forward is changing what he called a strong “anti-immigrant” atmosphere in the country that blames domestic problems on external factors.
“If Obama or McCain can mobilize the population of this country to change that focus, then there would be a substantive change in the relationship with Mexico,” he said, adding that if this doesn’t happen, ‘’I think either of the candidates is the same.” Hispanic Link.
