U.S. Dealings With Mexico Sidestep Usual Rules

WASHINGTON —  When Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew to Mexico City for an annual conference with Mexican leaders earlier this year, he took no fewer than eight other members of President Clinton’s Cabinet with him--more than travel together anywhere else in the world.

The huge U.S. delegation was testimony to the importance the Clinton administration attaches to a good working relationship with its neighbor--and trading partner--to the south.

Christopher and his colleagues believed the U.S.-Mexican relationship had grown strong enough to weather troubling incidents, including the beating of suspected illegal immigrants by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies and some tough remarks by a U.S. official about money laundering in Mexico.

But when they landed, they quickly found that their Mexican counterparts regarded the incidents as painful reminders of U.S. highhandedness. Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Angel Gurria Trevino lectured Christopher publicly about “trends that could jeopardize our relations and lead us down the road to confrontation and complaint.”

When Jesus Silva Herzog, Mexico’s ambassador in Washington, heard about Christopher’s premature optimism, he groaned. “Oh, my God,” the urbane ambassador exclaimed. “No one has listened.”

No foreign country commands the attention of as many different parts of the U.S. government as Mexico--and yet, no other country seems to engender so much misunderstanding. Part of the problem, paradoxically, may be the intimacy and complexity of the relationship. Other countries have complicated political, economic and military ties with the United States; Mexico has all these plus shared environmental problems, a flood of illegal drugs and the constant irritant of illegal immigration.

As a result, the U.S. government deals with Mexico differently from the way it does most other countries. The usual diplomatic rules do not apply.

When Atty. Gen. Janet Reno wants to communicate with her counterparts in most foreign countries, she generally must set up her contact through the State Department, which manages U.S. foreign affairs. But when Reno wants to speak with Mexican Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano Gracia, according to her aides, she just picks up the telephone and calls him.

Lozano and Reno speak with each other two or three times a month, partly in Spanish, mostly in English. Several significant U.S.-Mexican issues--such as drug enforcement and immigration--come up every day at the Justice Department. “A lot of our [domestic] problems don’t stop at the border,” says former Undersecretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, “and you just can’t leave it to the guys in striped pants to deliver messages to each other.”

Still, this intimacy, repeated in many other parts of the U.S. and Mexican governments, also makes it easier for officials on both sides to stray from official policy.

In April, for example, Thomas A. Constantine, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, complained publicly that drug mafias were moving millions of dollars in cash from drug sales across the border into Mexico and depositing the funds in Mexican banks. “We’ve seen a trend of bringing the money across the southwest border in bulk cash, several millions of dollars at a time,” he said, implying that Mexican authorities were not doing their part to stem the flow.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry went ballistic. “Constantine suggested that the Mexican banking system has been converted into a massive mechanism of money laundering when there is no concrete accusation or proof that confirms this,” a ministry statement said.

The U.S. State Department wasn’t happy either. Diplomats noted that the Mexican Congress was about to pass a bill instituting tough new measures against money laundering, and they worried that the DEA chief’s blast might derail it. (The bill passed.)

“Managing U.S.-Mexican relations is like managing a three-ring circus,” said the genial, Yale-educated Silva Herzog. “You have to juggle lots of balls in the air.”

On the U.S. side, there are lots of jugglers. Asked where Mexico policy is managed in Washington, a State Department official replied almost wistfully, “We like to think that this is the place.”

A deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, aided by nine foreign service officers who study Mexico full time, chairs a group with representatives from a dozen or so agencies who meet once a month at the State Department to talk about Mexico policy. If the issues seem more important than usual, the group may be chaired by the assistant secretary of state.

These meetings, which serve as a clearinghouse for information about the government’s varied Mexico activities, give the State Department a chance to monitor what is going on. “We don’t want to take on Treasury’s financial assistance program,” the State Department official said. “But we want to help them. One of our jobs is to keep tabs. I think we do a reasonable job.”

The group sometimes kicks nettlesome questions upstairs. A few months ago, for example, the group failed to agree on whether to certify to the U.S. Congress that Mexico was doing enough to stop narcotics from reaching the United States. In the end, the president and his advisors decided to do so.

Zoellick, who handled the task in the Bush administration, says Mexico policy is managed best when a high-ranking official coordinates it. This is needed, he said, because “modest problems can easily expand into major misunderstandings” in the U.S.-Mexican relationship.

Both Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III were Texans with what Zoellick calls “an affinity with Mexico.”

Zoellick, who had worked at the Justice Department, at the Treasury Department and in the 1988 election campaign, as well as at the State Department, had many contacts throughout the administration. “It made me the godfather” of Mexican policy, Zoellick recalled. “Where there was a problem that needed to be solved, that needed a decision by Baker or [National Security Advisor Brent] Scowcroft or the president, then the problem was brought to me.”

Zoellick said Clinton demonstrated a strong interest in Mexico by committing his administration to the North American Free Trade Agreement and to the financial rescue package that is helping Mexico survive its economic crisis. But he said he does not see coordination by anyone at the same rank that he held in the Bush administration. As a result, he said, he fears that U.S. policy toward Mexico is “drifting dangerously.”

Robert Kurz, who teaches Latin American relations at Georgetown University, points out the difficulties of coordination when domestic and international agencies are involved. “Domestic agencies usually deal with law enforcement or the enforcement of regulations,” he said. “They don’t consult with policymakers.”

These agents and inspectors do not feel that they must sensitize themselves to foreign policy considerations before fulfilling their duties, Kurz said.

Compared with crises of decades past, U.S.-Mexican relations are generally smooth these days. But a history of U.S. intervention and dominance still hangs over the relationship. “Every Mexican has a little anti-Americanism inside him,” said Silva Herzog.