A country at peace with its neighbors, with whom it has no serious disputes, Mexico maintains a low level of defense spending. The integration with the U knows by means of the N disease has, inter alia, enhanced security, enabling it to maintain the resources dedicated to the defense of the frontiers almost stable. The problems for the Mexican security result, if anything, by the growing incidence of drug trafficking and ‘ illegal immigration in U know. This community, which has tripled over the last twenty years, is increasingly a determining player in US politics, given the growing demographic and political weight exercised by the Latin vote, especially in the south of the country. Inevitably, the relationship between Mexico and the US knowsit is strongly influenced by the migratory theme, alongside that of the fight against drug trafficking. In order to try to contain the common threats, the two countries have increased their collaboration relations in the field of anti-terrorism and the fight against illegal immigration. A first step was the agreement on the kind of information that both states will share to conduct investigations into money laundering and other illicit trafficking signed in April 2014 in Washington by the Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob Lew, and the Secretary of the Treasury. Economy and Finance, Luis Videgaray. The implementation also continues, jointly with the U sa, of Plan Merida, which has allowed Mexico to receive 2.5 billion dollars from 2008 to date to combat drug trafficking. These problems in fact have a regional dimension, affecting the whole of Central America and in particular Guatemala, Salvador and Honduras, which have done little in the fight and contrast of the illicit trafficking of organized crime. In fact, the main criminal groups of these countries have formed strategic alliances with the Mexican gangs that in exchange for weapons and money to be able to finance their activities, have obtained control of the so-called puntos ciegos., territories outside the state authority used by Mexican armed gangs for their own training and for recruiting in the field. At the same time, Central American groups managed to infiltrate the ranks of the army and the state following a modus operandi similar to that of the Mexican cartels in the 1990s. In this way the problem of criminal trafficking becomes not only an affair between USA and Mexico but in a broader sense concerns the security of the entire region, although Mexico continues to have security problems internally. The fight against drug trafficking carried out by the government, already one of the most controversial issues in the Mexican internal debate, suffered a severe blow in 2015, especially in terms of image, with the escape of Joaquin ‘el Chapo’ Guzmán (later recaptured in January 2016), head of the Sinaloa cartel, from the Altiplano maximum security prison. For Mexico defense and foreign policy, please check themotorcyclers.com.
Mexico between NAFTA and the Pacific Alliance
In the last thirty years Mexico has been the protagonist of an intense phase of trade liberalization which, after the signing of the GATT / WTO in 1986, led the country to sign the NAFTA in 1994, a free trade treaty that also involves the US and Canada. With the participation in NAFTA, the Mexican economy has profoundly changed, transforming the country into one of the major trading partners of the United States and becoming the one with the largest free trade agreement network in the world. A success that has left its mark on Mexican geopolitics, anchoring it much more than in the past to the northern hemisphere of the Americas and distancing it equally from the southern hemisphere. The possibilities of further opening up to oriental markets and, at the same time, the need to reconnect with the Latin world by limiting the regional – political and economic – leadership of Brazil and Venezuela in the subcontinent, have allowed Mexico to explore new forms of regionalism. Mexico, together with Colombia, Peru and Chile, created the Pacific Alliance in June 2012 (Ap), a free trade area project aimed at integration and trade with Asian markets. The PA is a regional organization with a high geopolitical potential that in the short and medium term could redefine the current Latin American equilibrium that sees Mercosur and Alba – respectively led by Brazil and Venezuela -, the two leading organizations of the continent.
The routes of Mexican illegal immigration
The 3145 km long border separating Mexico and the USA has always been a delicate link between the Latin world to the south and the Anglo-Saxon world to the north. For years the border has been affected by an incessant flow of illegal immigrants who every year try to cross it, often with no luck and even facing death (almost 5513 victims in the last 15 years). This situation has fueled political debates in the two countries on whether or not to erect a barrier along the border. The barrier, under construction since 1994, has become the symbol of the complex relationship between the two states because it has proved to be an ineffective filter to human trafficking, drug trafficking and the international arms trade. The increase in rules and controls to prevent illegal immigration on US soil has coincided, paradoxically, also an increase of figures specialized in the trafficking of men from one side of the border to the other. These known as ‘coyotes’ or ‘polleros’ are desert caravans who work with anyone who wants to cross the border between Mexico and the United States. In recent years, however, their activity has increasingly become intertwined with that of international criminal networks. It is no coincidence that drug cartels use ‘ coyotes ‘ to allow drugs to enter the US.Migrants are often victims of violence and blackmail by criminal organizations that exploit them for drug trafficking, human beings and prostitution. In recent years, however, Mexico is becoming a place of transit for illegal immigrants, mainly from Honduras, Guatemala and Salvador. The measures and large investments announced so far by both sides to make the border waterproof have proved ineffective, so much so that the border north of Mexico is considered the third most dangerous in the world after the Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean according to the figures issued by the ‘ International Organization for Migration.
