A Day in the Life of Cuban-Mexican Relations

This Blog has also been posted in FPA's Latin America Blog.

  Since the election of the PAN in Mexico and Vicente Fox, there has been a slow movement towards Free Trade economics, policies in cooperation with the US and a cooling of relations with Cuba. In the late 1970s and early 1980s it was quite the opposite, with new oil wealth in Mexico pushing the government at the time into a position of a regional leader in Central America. With the collapse of the oil prices in the early 80s, the ambitions of Mexico as a regional power were extinguished and relations via NAFTA and the free market took hold in order to pull Mexico out of the numerous pesos crashes that plagues the country in the 1980s and 1990s. With the election of Vicente Fox and the diminishing of the PRI party which ruled Mexico for over 75 years, the PAN and Fox set Mexico on a new path, trying to create a framework for trade, jobs and immigration with the Bush administration in 2000 and after.

While the War on Terror took attention away from immigration and Mexico until 2007, Mexico still has been on the path of solidifying external relations since the victory of Fox and within the administration of the current President Calderon. Part of the reintegration of Mexico into the world community and its transformation as a strong emerging market came with political changes as well. Traditionally, Mexico has been seen in the light of policies which saw the US as an aggressor, with much of the 20th century being framed in policies from Cardenas and nationalisations of foreign industry that took hold in the interwar period and into the 1960s. Mexican-US relations were minimal until the late 1960s, and with these policies also came the support, at least verbally, for anti-US movements in Latin America, especially passive support for Cuba via trade and cultural ties. With ties came immigration, and until this week Cubans who can gain asylum in the US have been coming through Mexico as well as the sea in order to make a new life in the United States.

While over 11,000 Cubans came into the US through Mexico last year, Mexico has finally taken actions to close many of the routes for Cubans coming into the US through Mexico, mainly for security reasons, but also satisfying many Cuban officials who saw their citizens leaving for the US via Mexico as politically damaging to Cuba itself. While Cuban-Mexican relations have become more tense since 2000, this action, while likely not for the benefit of the Cuban Government is seen as an olive branch between the two nations. In the end, the tightening of borders will only stop a fraction of migrants from passing into the US. While economic troubles and tighter security may deter some from coming, economic osmosis will still bring Cubans and Mexicans across the border to seek a living in the US and escape intense poverty in their own countries.