While GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be promoting his border wall to keep undocumented Mexican aliens from entering the United States, the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, is busy trying to convey a more amiable message: that joint bilateral cooperation is good for both countries, and that “trade and security are not mutually exclusive.”
Rather than dismantling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) like Trump has threatened to do, Jacobson has focused on ways to expand the treaty and revamp it to adapt to current market realities, thus increasing a combined bilateral trade that already amounts to an exchange of $1.6 billion in goods and services every day.
“We know that trade between our countries strengthens our communities, strengthens our livelihoods and the rule of law,” Jacobson was quoted as saying said during last week’s U.S.-Mexico Borderplex Alliance summit in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.
“All too often we hear only the negative voices. We hear only that the border isn’t secure or that things are not going well. A community like yours, on both sides of the border, that understands and sees firsthand how trade benefits both countries and both citizenries, has to be even more vocal right now when we have to push back against that negative narrative.”
And it’s not just trade that binds the two countries together.
Two-way visa emissions have increased by 45 percent in the last 10 years, with 18 million Mexicans visiting the United States in 2015 and a projected 5 percent increase in that number for 2016. There were over 25 million U.S. visitors to Mexico in 2015.
Government-to-government cooperation is allowing Mexico and the United States to work together to help ensure that U.S.-born migrant children have access to education and other basic services in Mexico.
And academic exchange and joint research between the countries through the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Research and Innovation (Fobesii) is increasing innovation and competitiveness on both sides of the border.
By the same token, Mexico and the United States have both curbed violence and increased security through enhanced cross-border communications system.
The United States and Mexico are working together on global issues such as clean air and climate policies, as well as narcotics and human trafficking, arms smuggling and money laundering.
During her speech, Jacobson said that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico has matured and continues to develop.
She added that by improving communications and attempting to resolve bilateral difference through candid discussions, the United States and Mexico have opened new avenues of development.
“I do think we need to do a better job of explaining this relationship,” she concluded.
“It’s one of the most important relationships on a daily basis to all Americans. And that should be pretty obvious, but it’s not. So we have to work that much harder to overcome misinformation.”
Thérèse Margolis can be reached at therese.margolis@gmail.com.