HispanicVista Columnists
Fox Visit to US Signals His Party’s Trepidation
By Robert Miranda
Mexican president Vicente Fox visited the United States recently in an effort to bolster political efforts aimed at moving the United States government into enacting a comprehensive immigration bill that treats immigrants, specifically Mexicans, with dignity.
While Fox was preaching the message of human rights, it was clear that his visit had more to do with promoting his political party’s resolve to take on the United States toe to toe on the issue of immigration.
Many Mexican political pundits saw the Fox visit as a means to bolster the president’s party, the National Action Party (PAN). With elections just weeks away, Fox took a big gamble getting directly involved in internal U.S. political affairs. The visit might backfire if U.S. lawmakers and the public perceive Fox, a foreign leader, as meddling in our business.
For Fox and the PAN, his visit comes at a time when it seems Felipe Calderon; heir apparent to Fox's conservative government is in a tight race with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is a left leaning Mexican politician who resigned from the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1988 to join the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
He held the position of Mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005. He resigned in July 2005 to contend in the Presidential elections representing the PRD.
Mr Felipe Calderón, who belongs to the same party as
Fox, is a former banker. He allegedly authorized himself a loan of half a
million dollars when he was director of the Federal Bank Banobras. The loan
was re-paid after reports in the media forced resolution of the matter.
He was also implicated in one of the world’s most costly bank rescue
operations. The bail-out of a number of Mexican banks in the late 1990s cost
the country some one trillion dollars; almost equal the amount of the
Mexican GDP. Many of Mr Calderón's critics argue that paying for the banks'
failures under his charge reduced Mexico’s ability to grow economically.
Mexico’s Future with the United States
Mexico’s presidential election will signal a political turning point if Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his PRD emerge triumphant in July.
Following the trend of leftist victories in Latin America, a victory by the PRD could signal a reversal in Mexican economic policies. One economic policy the PRD will look at reversing, if not repealing, is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Without question, Mexico will begin, as was done by other leftist Latin American nations already, aggressive economic talks with China. Chinese influence in the region is rapidly drawing an eyebrow of suspicion with U.S. military officials and concern from economic leaders on Wall Street.
More interestingly, will Mexico become a player in a united leftist front against the United States' economic agenda in Latin America with Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba and Chile?
As the U.S. Republican Party’s extremists continue to press for walls and soldiers to be placed on the border between Mexico and the United States, the friendship between the two nations will evolve into suspicion and mistrust. The PRD after its victory in July will repay the United States by engaging in more commerce trade with China and India, leaving U.S. corporations holding on to a busted up piñata.
The Mexican PAN Party is in trouble. The years of accepting U.S. economic policies and neo-liberal global economics has forced the PAN to make drastic political concessions such as implementing ultra-liberal drug policies and refusing to accept current U.S. actions on immigration. The PAN is only doing this because the PRD has become a major threat to the PAN’s rule.
- The PAN’s trepidation comes after years of being serfs to U.S. global economic policies. The PRD aims to challenge that in the coming years, one way it will win is by linking up politically and economically with those Latin American nations aforementioned now poised to move on with their own economic agendas.
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- Robert Miranda, a frequent contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) is a national award winning columnist, Latino community activist and Publisher of the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. Email at: rmiranda@wi.rr.com