Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Mexico

The Era of Excuses in Latin America

The Era of Excuses in Latin America

After mostly sidestepping the global financial crisis in 2008, many in Latin America welcomed the 2010s as “Latin America’s decade.” But it’s been quick to fizzle out. Now, with the World Bank and IMF projecting ho-hum growth over the near future, come the excuses. Brazil stood first in line for comeuppance. Since 2011, the economy […]

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Opening Up to the BRICS Generation

Opening Up to the BRICS Generation

When French politician Pascal Lamy set the process in motion to replace himself as the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it was an interesting outcome that the two last candidates for the position were both from Latin America and were both from economies either from BRICS nations or that are considered as pre-BRICS […]

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Pena Nieto’s Latest Reform

Pena Nieto’s Latest Reform

The flurry of reform continues in Mexico. On Wednesday, President Enrique Pena Nieto announced plans to ease the flow of credit to small businesses. Mexico’s sky-high interest rates have long kept small businesses from growing, driven entrepreneurs into the informal economy, and pushed many Mexicans to illegally immigrate to the United States. The Washington Post […]

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Theories on the Rise of Diabetes in Mexico

Theories on the Rise of Diabetes in Mexico

One fact that is often presented in the classroom of fresh MBA students is that out of all the markets for carbonated beverages in the world, Mexicans stand as the number one consumers of sodas. So much is the love of those sugary drinks that it placed the former head of Coca-Cola in Mexico, the […]

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On the Road to Pemex Reform

On the Road to Pemex Reform

President Enrique Peña Nieto has mounted an assault against Mexico’s entrenched monopolies over the past two months. He first took on the teachers union, then the telecoms, explaining his aim was to “transform the country, not just to run it.” Where’s this going? As noted by the Financial Times, the reform offensive “could ultimately even shake up […]

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ICE Agents Claim Napolitano Forcing Them to Violate U.S. Law–New Immigration Directives Invitation to Terrorists and Cartels

ICE Agents Claim Napolitano Forcing Them to Violate U.S. Law–New Immigration Directives Invitation to Terrorists and Cartels

Staying alive at DHS is a full-time occupation. One slip-up, the chain quivers, the blame starts its downward flow, and if you’re an agent, you’re pulling duty in Pembina, ND, or spending the rest of your working life doodling on a yellow legal pad in an empty room at HQ/DC. So believe me when I tell you that it takes more than a fit of pique to file a legal complaint against DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, as the National Ice Council has done on behalf of eleven agents who believe that recent policy directives on prosecutorial discretion and the Dream directive on deferred action—are forcing them to choose between enforcing immigration and deportation laws passed by the US Congress in 1996 and their professional careers. Christopher Crane, head of the Council, reports that agents who continue to enforce laws currently on the books—ignoring policy directives from the top instructing them neither to apprehend, arrest, or depart aliens who’ve entered the US illegally or who’ve overstayed their visas (even illegals serving time in US prisons for felonies and misdemeanors)—are targets for disciplinary action….

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Powering Up NAFTA

Powering Up NAFTA

Latin America is often seen as in the lower echelon of State Department priorities, and many experts think this is appropriate, given the world’s current hotspots. However, Latin Americans are our closest neighbors, much of our immigrant population, and our partners in solving major domestic issues. Christopher Sabatini, Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly, wants the Obama […]

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The Other Side of Immigration (2009)

The Other Side of Immigration (2009)

It’s the economy, stupid. That mantra from Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential race pretty much sums up the core issue when it comes to immigration from Mexico to the United States. Many Mexicans abandon the countryside in their native country to seek a better life in the United States. The main reason: they cannot compete with […]

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Shared Policy for Mexico’s New President and America’s Old President

Shared Policy for Mexico’s New President and America’s Old President

President Obama’s election victory last month proposed many new policy changes for the next four years. One of the most important policy relationships may be the one between the United States and Mexico. This past Saturday, Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico’s new President. With policy challenges for Nieto tied greatly to Mexico’s […]

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5 Foreign Policy Challenges Obama Can Tackle From Home

5 Foreign Policy Challenges Obama Can Tackle From Home

While foreign policy had a brief moment in the sun during this past election cycle, Americans are still clearly, and rightly, preoccupied with the challenges we face here at home. A CBS poll taken just before President Barack Obama was re-elected found that just 5 percent of Americans said foreign policy was an “issue of […]

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Mexico’s Most Important Election

Mexico’s Most Important Election

Barack Obama’s reelection has stirred policy reactions in Mexico in at least two ways. First, voters in the states of Colorado and Washington endorsed ballot measures to legalize recreational use of marijuana. One would expect the next issue up for discussion to be the legal conflicts involving interstate commerce and, in general, how the Feds […]

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Will Fast and Furious survive the election? DOJ seeks to limit authority of future congressional investigations

Will Fast and Furious survive the election? DOJ seeks to limit authority of future congressional investigations

When you’re right, you’re right. I’m talking about Fast and Furious, the gun-walking operation the US Department of Justice used (illegally if the Export Control Act still carries any weight) to funnel more than 2000 fully operational combat-ready guns and other serious weaponry across the US-Mexico border and into the hands of cartel gang members.

The ‘covert op’ nobody in Washington knew anything about but which, nevertheless, allowed cartel assassins to use these weapons to gun down hundreds of innocent people, including US law enforcement agents like Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Almost ten months ago, in this very blog (Brian Terry, Jesus Diaz, Dakota Meyer: Justice in 2012?), this writer suggested that, the nearer we came to the election, the less would be said, and done, in regard to the plight of the Terry Family and their hope that, in the case of Fast and Furious, ‘justice would be done.’

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Mexico’s Growing Middle Class

Mexico’s Growing Middle Class

Mexico has come in for positive news of late, thanks in part to a forecast published by Nomura Securities that showed Mexico surpassing Brazil as Latin America’s largest economy by 2022. While that’s certainly possible, a more realistic scenario would involve Mexico growing at the upper end of the growth range the IMF has set […]

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Discussing Romney’s Policy on Latin America

Discussing Romney’s Policy on Latin America

President Obama over the last four years has had as successful a record on Latin America as the last two presidents before him. It can be argued he has had some added success in the region considering luck and policy with Colombia gaining a handle on its own internal conflict and Cuba slowly reforming to […]

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Winning an Election in the Americas: Apathy and Corruption Compete for the Best of the Worst

Winning an Election in the Americas: Apathy and Corruption Compete for the Best of the Worst

Student protests this year in the streets of Montreal over a relatively small tuition hike took the Quebec government by storm. In reality, it is likely more than just tuition that fuelled this year’s protests with the Liberal Party of Quebec facing allegations of corruption after nine long years in power. The Parti Quebecois, the […]

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