Well, not too far. Apart from an Aeromexico direct flight from Mexico City to Shanghai, Mexico’s foreign policy is not particularly global in scope. Of course it could be argued that Mexico has now a prominent place in the community of nations because it just recently assumed the Presidency of the UN Security Council. Unfortunately, the Security Council is not the most effective international organization in the planet (in general international organizations are not that effective).
The office of Mexican President Felipe Calderon also announced that the country has recovered its leadership of Latin America. However, this is quite a vague statement since Mexico has not led anything since the 1980s. But at least the administration tries its best: President Calderon was on a state visit to the United Kingdom. In order to improve Mexico’s strategic position in the world, the Mexican President had dinner with the Queen. It is unclear if he wore a hat to the dinner. It is unfortunate that at the time of the visit Mexico had not fired Sven-Goran Eriksson as coach of the national soccer team. Otherwise, Mexican officials could have convinced their British counterparts that Mexico knows what it is doing.
In other happy news, the Mexican government received a 47 billion dollar loan from the IMF. However, according to the Finance Minister, Mexico does not really need the money. They just asked for it in case things go wrong. Unfortunately, things seem to get worse by the day. The IMF can just put the loan on Mexico’s tab: this would not be the first time this happens.
And last but not least, Mexico was also present at the G-20 meeting. The Mexican President did not steal the show this time. In this occasion, and once again, Barack and Michelle Obama were the stars of the meeting. Yet, the Mexican administration should not feel too bad about the lack of publicity during the meeting (even though Mexico has now recovered its leadership of Latin America). At least Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder, US Secretary of Homeland Security and US Attorney General respectively, just visited Mexico and met with President Calderon. The office of the Mexican presidency has not reported whether they hugged each other.
