Why Not Some New Thinking?

Vicente Fox, Mexico’s president-elect, is a man with a message: “Think different.” After years of complicated cohabitation between Mexico and the United States, Fox has arrived with a marriage proposal. Fox is asking Americans to move beyond a limited trade agreement, beyond commercial transactions, beyond business ties between the two countries. Fox is proposing a “North American Union” patterned on the European Union and a true partnership among equals. Many Americans will ask “Why?” The time has come to ask “Why not?”

Mexico and the United States are already headed toward a large, permanent and self-perpetuating presence in one another. Rather than ignore the ties that bind, Fox, a practical pragmatist, wants to tighten them by allowing goods, services, capital and people to move freely across the border. He is proposing an engagement that will allow us to get from here to there: from the North American Free Trade Agreement to an all-encompassing union; from poverty south of the Rio Grande to prosperity for all.

The idea of an open border with Mexico makes Americans cringe. Many believe it would open the floodgates to a permanent invasion of the dispossessed and the disenfranchised. But Fox didn’t go to Washington, trumpet in hand, hoping to bring down the wall between Mexico and the United States tomorrow. He didn’t call for an immediate elimination of patrols and passports, guards and guard dogs. His “vision thing” is long-term, 30 years down the line. He is, however, talking about inevitable forces and suggesting that we rein them in through a joint approach to immigration and a shared approach to development.

For years Mexico and the United States have co-written volumes of bilateral fiction. The U.S. has pretended that it doesn’t need Mexican immigrants and Mexico has pretended that it doesn’t need to provide them with well-paying jobs. Both countries have side-stepped the heart of the matter: the wage gap. Mexico’s 96 million people have a per capita GDP of $4,000, or one-seventh that of the United States. A typical Mexican factory worker earns $1.20 per hour. Forty percent of Mexico’s population gets by on less than $2 a day. Poverty in Mexico fuels immigration and drug-trafficking--the two banes of the bilateral relationship. Until and unless incomes rise at home, Mexicans will go abroad.

Fox argues that Mexico’s disparities should be a common cause for concern. NAFTA has enabled Mexico to take a great leap forward. But markets will not be enough to bridge the dramatic divide between the haves and the have nots. The head of Mexico’s new democracy is offering to do his share of the work: provide microcredits for microbusinesses, create 1.3 million new jobs a year, aim for 7% growth, bring Mexico’s economic indicators in line with those of the U.S.

In return, he wants the United States to legalize needed immigration flows and invest funds south of the border in immigrant-sending communities and infrastructure projects. He wants the U.S. to open its border and its wallet.

What would the Americans get in return? A more prosperous Mexico. A country that imports more American goods and exports fewer impoverished migrants. A border that doesn’t need to be defended.

Fox wants to construct a convergence that will eventually turn Mexico into a fully North American partner. But in order to do this, he needs a receptive audience and flexible interlocutors in the United States. Fox’s ultimate goal--a united North America--may seem like a walk on the clouds. But the prenuptial agreement he’s outlined at least breaks out of the old ways of thinking about U.S.-Mexico relations.

Americans have a choice. They can dismiss Fox as a hopeless romantic and a rash suitor. Or they can recognize that Fox’s brand of boldness toppled the longest-ruling party in the world. Americans can continue to build walls, construct barricades, deploy border patrols and struggle to keep Mexicans at arm’s length. Or they can embrace Fox’s invitation to think outside the box.