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POWER, IDENTITY AND SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS: THE US-CANADA AND US-MEXICO RELATIONSHIPS IN HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Brian Bow (Dalhousie University) and Arturo Santa-Cruz (University of Guadalajara)

Paper prepared for the 2010 American Political Science Association meeting,

September 2-5, Washington, D.C.

DRAFT – COMMENTS WELCOME – PLEASE DON’T CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION How does the United States relate to the West? We tend, in the IR literature, to think about it in

terms of the “ordering” of the West: Is it a civilization, an empire, a strategic bargain, a security

community, or something else? Will the West hold together or break apart, and—putting the

same question in a different form—can the United States continue to exercise leadership of the

West? Much of our thinking about these questions is based on the assumptions that there is a

coherent, singular West, and that the US relates to that western community in a coherent,

singular way. But as Peter Katzenstein has argued, the West is both plural and pluralist, and the

United States “fits” into the West in a variety of different ways, revealing many different sides of

itself in the process.1

We begin here with the expectation that closer, comparative examination

of the way that the US relates to specific partners can help us to untangle some of these

complexities and contradictions.

US relations with Canada and Mexico are a particularly interesting window on these questions,

because each of them sits at the closer edge of a different version of “the West.” In the 19th and

very early 20th centuries, the United States tended to think about the West in terms of the

western hemisphere, as a grouping of “new” republics that had escaped from the strife of

European politics, and of itself as this community’s philosophical and political leader. Canada

was seen to be a part of this sphere, but an exceptional one, as part of the British empire (later

Commonwealth). Mexico, like the rest of the hemisphere, was relegated to the United States’

“backyard,” and to military and economic manipulation predicated on the presumption of

Anglo-Saxon racial superiority.2

1 Peter J. Katzenstein, “The West: Plural and Pluralist,” International Studies Association

conference, New York, February 17-20, 2010.

In the middle part of the 20th century, US elites came to see

Canada as part of a new West—an imagined “transatlantic” community, facing off against the

Soviet threat and the developing “Third World”—which has come to dominate Americans’

2 Desmond S. King and Rogers Smith, “Racial Orders in American Political Development,” American Political Science Review 99:1 (February 2005): 75-92.

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thinking about their place in the world. Since the end of the Cold War, however, US elites have

gradually shifted Canada into the western hemisphere, and, since the passing of NAFTA in 1993,

have increasingly thought about both Canada and Mexico as partners within a distinct subregion

of the western hemisphere: “North America.” The consolidation of a robust North American

regional community would be a historical development not unlike European integration, in the

sense that it would depend on bringing together many different, partially-discordant “western”

traditions. So far, however, those divergent worldviews have been a source of political tensions

between the three governments, and have tended to work against meaningful regional

integration.

At the most basic level, the US-Canada and US-Mexico relationships are structurally comparable

(i.e., very extensive, very asymmetrical interdependence), but the US has historically related to

the two neighbors in very different ways. These differences are partly based on concrete

differences between Canada and Mexico as neighbors and partners to the US (e.g., different

levels of economic development), but also partly on the way that the different policy challenges

faced in each bilateral relationship have tended to draw out different ideas about US national

identity and purpose. Our purpose here is to try to outline the differences between the two

bilateral relationships, to describe some major continuities and changes in each, to relate these

patterns to the concept of the “special relationship,” and to make connections between societies’

thinking about their international relationships and the constitution of their own national

identities.

We argue that the US-Canada and US-Mexico relationships are each governed by their own

distinctive clusters of bargaining norms, which channel and constrain bilateral (and sometimes

trilateral) diplomacy. Relations between the US and Canada have historically conformed closely

to what we normally think of as a “textbook” special relationship, featuring mutual

understanding, extensive and often informal policy coordination, and reflexive self-restraint

under stress.3

3 On the general concept of the special relationship, see: John Dumbrell and Axel R. Schäfer,

“Introduction: The Politics of Special Relationships,” in Dumbrell and Schäfer, eds., America’s Special Relationships: Foreign and Domestic Aspects of the Politics of Alliance (New York: Routledge, 2009).

This closeness is predicated on the recognition of shared interests, to be sure, but

it is also cemented by a deeply-rooted sense of mutual identification and common purposes.

Over the last forty years, there has been a weakening of the old diplomatic culture, and a new

sense of estrangement, but there is still something distinctively “friendly” about the US-Canada

relationship. The US-Mexico relationship is far more distant, and certainly isn’t “special” in the

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same way that the US-Canada one is, partly because the Mexican government has historically

wanted to keep things at arm’s length, but also because American policy-makers have tended to

see Mexico as alien, difficult, and unreliable. Yet Mexico does enjoy a kind of special relationship

with the US, at least relative to other Latin American countries. Whereas the US has frequently

intervened directly in the domestic politics of other Latin American countries—sometimes with

military force—it has taken a more “hands-off” approach with Mexico, and has been prepared to

accept occasional shows of defiance, even direct criticism, from governing elites in Mexico, with

the expectation that this helps to sustain domestic political stability south of the border. But

whereas Canadian and American elites have frequently celebrated their special relationship,

Mexican and American elites tacitly recognize that their special understanding can work only if

they do not talk openly about it.

At the same time, there is an enduring impulse to “push back” against getting too close with the

neighbors. The nation-building projects in Canada and Mexico have historically been framed in

opposition to the United States, as a rejection of supposedly-prototypical American institutions

and values, and each has sustained a mild but pervasive form of anti-Americanism. Anti-

American attitudes are always brewing in Canada and Mexico, and elites there are often in a

position to tap into those fears and prejudices in order to rally popular support for (or

opposition to) particular policies. But while anti-American impulses in Canada and Mexico are

widespread and enduring, they are tempered by direct experience, brought about by cross-

border travel and exchanges of various kinds, the penetration of the Canadian media by

American news and entertainment, and the existence of a huge Mexican diaspora in the US.

Familiarity is said to breed contempt, but in these cases living next door to the US has brought

neither a deep sense of kinship nor deep hatred. There are in fact many Canadians and Mexicans

are attracted to American ideas and the American way of life, and there are political factions in

both countries whose ideological commitments have more in common with US counterparts

than with their domestic political rivals. But they categorically deny that they value these things

as American values, casting them instead as home-grown liberalism. The overall impression one

gets is of ambivalence, and it is the working out of these conflicting impulses—both between

and within societies—which drives the ups and downs in each bilateral relationship.

Each bilateral relationship is characterized by its own informal bargaining norms, predicated on

elites’ views of their national interests, and what is owed to the other country, by virtue of the

kind of society it is, and the perceived nature and purposes of the bilateral relationship itself.

However, the nature and depth of these diplomatic cultures is very different. The US-Canada

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relationship has historically been characterized by a sense of trust and accommodation, based

on mutual identification and the legacies of past cooperation, and the US-Mexico relationship

has been characterized by mistrust and distance, based on perceived difference, historical

grievances, and demands for recognition.

We find that it is the predominant ideas about national identity in the weaker party which set

the tone for the bilateral relationship in each pair, but that Canadian and Mexican efforts to

shape the terms of “the relationship” have been limited and sometimes challenged by

Americans’ perceptions of their own interests, and their sense of obligation and purpose. We

outline in broad strokes the history of each bilateral relationship, and then look in a more

directly comparative way at bilateral relations within the security and economic policy fields.

Because our main concern here is comparison of the two bilateral relationships, we tend to

focus on continuities within each relationship. We do however identify some changes over time

within each pair, with particular attention to the upwelling of nationalist pressures for

“independence” in Canada and Mexico during the 1970s, the political struggles over Canada’s

and Mexico’s historic shift to free trade with the United States in the 1980s, and the dislocations

brought about the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We find that there have been some significant

changes over the last few decades: Though the US and Canada are now much more tightly

integrated—especially but not only economically—the bilateral relationship is now less

“special” than it was during the early Cold War decades. Americans elites are not so quick now

to assume that the values and interests of the two sides are naturally convergent, and there is no

longer the same intuitive expectation that all problems can be resolved through

accommodation, consultation and self-restraint. In the US-Mexico relationship, on the other

hand, there has been some bridging of the great divide between the two societies’ basic

worldviews, and there seems now to be an opening for mutual identification and trust-building,

at least at the elite level. But bilateral relations are still complicated by enduring prejudices and

mistrust, and by the gap between Mexican elites’ aspirations to “modernization” and their

capacity to deliver meaningful reform.

Canada-US Relations: An Ever-Tightening Embrace, but Always at Arm’s Length

The US-Canada relationship is a special one, both in the sense that it is different and that it is

“better” than most—where by “better,” we mean that it features a level of mutual consideration

and self-restraint that seems genuinely exceptional compared to most of what we see in world

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politics.4

The executive branch in the United States has historically been prepared to extend to

Canada extensive and intensive consultation, to approach policy frictions in terms of joint

search for mutual gains, to tiptoe around Canada’s domestic political sensitivities, and often to

provide special exemptions from “universal” foreign economic policies.

Canadian nationalists reject this interpretation of the relationship, of course, and have naturally

tended to fixate on those few times when US policy-makers aggressively challenged Canadian

policies, brushed off Canadian advice or entreaties, or simply didn’t pay enough attention to

Canada to avoid stepping on it. But, when we look at the broad pattern of bilateral relations over

the last hundred years, these really are exceptions to the rule, and each of them has been

attributable either to an especially provocative Canadian policy initiative or—much more

often—an outburst of local or sectoral parochialism in the United States, usually channeled

through Congress. Even these exceptions tend to prove the rule, since they reflect the

extraordinary self-restraint that the United States has consistently shown in bilateral

confrontations with Canada. Even when Canada has pursued policies that have impinged on

core US national interests (e.g., nationalization of oil investments in the early 1980s) or

challenged American strategic leadership (e.g., nuclear weapons dispute in the early 1960s), the

US has consistently avoided making coercive issue-linkages and continued to seek out

cooperative, integrative solutions.5

The United States’ general tendency to deference and self-restraint with Canada is obviously

based in part on the implications of extensive economic interdependence,6

but there is more

than just enlightened self-interest in play here. The US-Canada special relationship is rooted in a

particular way of thinking about who the two countries are, what they have in common, and

how they ought to relate to one another.

The sense that there is a special connection between the two societies goes back to before the

American Revolution, but the more substantial sense of mutual identification and obligation we

associate with the “special relationship” only started to coalesce in the mid-twentieth century.

4 On the US-Canada relationship as an exception, see: David A. Baldwin, “The Myths of the Special

Relationship,” International Studies Quarterly 12:2 (June 1968): 127-151. Many of the arguments in this section are based on findings from: Brian Bow, The Politics of Linkage: Power, Interdependence and Identity in Canada-US Relations (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009).

5 See: Bow, The Politics of Linkage.

6 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1977), ch. 7.

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In its formative years, the new American republic looked northward and saw both a challenge

and an opportunity. The very existence of the Canadian provinces represented a philosophical

and political challenge to the American Revolution, and even a source of military threat, as a

potential staging ground for an anticipated British attempt at reconquest.7 Yet the spirit of

American exceptionalism encouraged US elites to assume that their northern neighbors would

naturally embrace the revolution, if only they could be liberated from the empire, and that the

US had a “manifest destiny” to spread its ideas and institutions to all parts of the continent.8

This would be easier and more “natural” to the north than in other directions, because it was

seen to be populated by the same “Anglo-Saxon” people, with the same values and aspirations as

those in the United States.9

In the second half of the 1800s, the US was caught up in westward expansion and civil war; the

US and the UK reached a new political and strategic accommodation, the Canadian provinces

were joined in confederation, and the US and Canada gradually began to form what Karl Deutsch

called a “pluralistic security community.”10 Relations between the US and Canada were peaceful

but not particularly close between 1867 and 1940, characterized by general mutual neglect,

punctuated by frictions over the Alaska boundary and various trade issues, and improved

somewhat by successful collaboration during the late stages of World War One.11

It was during the Second World War that American and Canadian policy-makers began to work

together very closely, and to develop a set of shared understandings about how to manage the

bilateral relationship. The challenges of war-time defense production compelled US and

Canadian officials to work very closely together, to entrust the day-to-day “management” of the

relationship to technical experts, and generally to put close collaboration ahead of national

sovereignty concerns. These networks formed during the war were then broadened and

reinforced during the 1950s, as Canada—recognizing new global strategic and economic

realities—shifted its center of gravity from the UK to the US, putting past apprehensions aside 7 John Herd Thompson and Stephen Randall, Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies (4th

ed., Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008).

8 Reginald Stuart, United States Expansionism and British North America, 1775-1871 (Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).

9 Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 264, 283-4.

10 Stéphane Roussel, The North American Democratic Peace (Kingston: Queen’s University Centre for International Relations, 2004).

11 Norman Hillmer and J.L. Granatstein, Empire to Umpire: Canada and the World into the Twenty-First Century (2nd ed., Toronto: Nelson, 2007).

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and seeking new export markets and investment capital from its southern neighbor. Canada

also become an important and especially close ally during these early Cold War years, both

within the narrower “continental” sphere (NORAD) and as part of the western alliance against

the Soviet Union (NATO).12

The building of this new partnership was undertaken by a new generation of bureaucrats and

officers in Ottawa and Washington, who were joined together not only by common purposes,

but by common class and educational backgrounds, and in some cases even family ties.13 US

policy-makers saw their Canadian counterparts as “just like” them, and found them especially

“easy to work with.” Most of these men—like most of the American public—knew little about

Canada, and tended to rely on simplistic assumptions about what Canadians were like, and what

they wanted. Since those images of Canada were thoroughly positive—and since they tended to

assume Canadian values and interests were naturally convergent with American ones—they

were generally inclined to give Canada the benefit of the doubt. Of course, the assumption that

the interests of the two countries were essentially the same also tended to intensify American

surprise and indignation when Canada insisted on going its own way.14 But there were a handful

of more knowledgeable “Canada watchers” in the US bureaucracy who better understood

Canadian priorities and sensitivities, and felt obliged to try to accommodate them. Through the

1950s and 1960s, they and their Canadian counterparts worked out a shared diplomatic

culture—i.e., a set of tacit bargaining norms to guide joint “management” of the relationship.15

These understandings were anchored in a broader conception of the two countries’ common

heritage and values, which set up expectation of common purposes and mutual obligation. On

one level, this was but one manifestation of the United States’ sense of itself as a member of a

larger community of “western” states, in the context of the Cold War and afterward. And, more

particularly, it was a reflection of American elites’ attachment to a smaller grouping within that

wider “western” community, defined by the distinctive cultural values and priorities of what is

now sometimes called the “Anglosphere”—i.e., Great Britain, and its former settler colonies, the

12 Here we are echoing the way that Americans and Canadians have historically tended to use the

word “continental,” to refer to problems and policies affecting the US and Canada only, particularly—but not only—on defense issues.

13 Greg Donaghy, Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68 (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003).

14 Charles H. Doran, Forgotten Partnership: US-Canadian Relations Today (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1984), pp. 40-42.

15 Bow, The Politics of Linkage, pp. 6-13.

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US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It has long been recognized that the US has cooperated

more closely with the other members of this group than with any other allies, particularly in the

area of intelligence-sharing.16 Many (but not all) of the most influential “Canada watchers” in

Washington during the Cold War were Anglophiles, who were receptive to Churchill-style

arguments about the special historical responsibilities of the “English-speaking peoples.”17

They

often talked of the US-Canada relationship as intimately tied up with the US-UK relationship,

and that it natural that Canada would be included in summit meetings between the US and

Britain.

In the early Cold War years, Canadian officials were inclined to play up the “Anglo” connection,

both in private and in public, and to use it to try to secure a seat at the high table with the US

and Britain. There were frequent references to the old metaphor of the US and Canada as

“daughters” of the same (British) mother, and to Canada as a natural “bridge” between the UK

and the US. After the mid-1950s, however, Canadian elites began to back away from the

language and imagery of the “Anglo” community. The traditional attachment to the empire was

much diminished by the realities of decolonization, particularly the awkward stand-off between

the US and UK in the Suez Crisis. More importantly, the identification of Canada as an “Anglo”

country—always a provocative act in a state based on compromises between two “founding

nations”—was becoming increasingly impolitic within a changing Canadian society. The

secularization and modernization of politics in Quebec in the 1960s (the “Quiet Revolution”)

triggered an upwelling of nationalist feeling within the province, and generated a full-blown

autonomy/secessionist movement, with both a short-lived violent faction (the FLQ) and longer-

lived mainstream parties (the PQ and BQ). Francophones were also becoming increasingly

involved in federal politics, one aspect of which was the integration of a new cohort of

Francophone officials within the foreign and defense bureaucracy in particular. At the same

time, Canadians were becoming more aware of the long-run political and social implications of

increased immigration from outside Europe. Facing all of these problems at once, the Canadian

government came to embrace a new “multiculturalist” ethos, which downgraded race and

culture as markers for national identity, shifting the focus to broader liberal-democratic values,

yet also provided for an association of self-identifying groups, rather than a classic Lockean

community of free-floating individuals. This new, “post-national” conception of the national

16 Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties that Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the

UK/USA Countries (New York: Harper-Collins, 1985).

17 Robert D. Cuff and J.L. Granatstein, Canadian-American Relations in War-Time: From the Great War to the Cold War (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974).

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identity, it was hoped, would submerge Quebec’s demands for special treatment, attract new

immigrants and facilitate their integration, and generally defuse tensions within an increasingly

diverse and fragmented society.18

As the “Anglo” connection receded into the background, Canadian and US elites began to draw

more heavily on other long-running themes from the shared symbolic landscape, particularly

that of “good neighborliness” and of “partnership.”19

On the surface, this way of representing the

bilateral relationship would seem to be a matter of geography rather than culture, and thus to

be readily “available” to Mexico as well. But in practice, it has almost always been invoked in

ways that imply trust and mutual obligation based on similarity and natural compatibility.

The salience of the postwar diplomatic culture has eroded since the 1970s, because the

underlying social and political foundations have been profoundly shaken: Generational turnover

has undone the essential homogeneity of the elite community that managed the relationship, as

power shifted from traditional power centers in the US Northeast to the south and west, and

from Ontario to Quebec and the western provinces. And, while the new generation of executive

branch officials have tried to carry on with the postwar “diplomatic culture,” they have been far

less able to manage bilateral affairs as they would like, because of the weakening of the State

Department after the 1950s and the new assertiveness of Congress after the 1970s. The

importance of these domestic political changes has been further reinforced by the

internationalization of the US economy and the political dislocations associated with

globalization, as hard-pressed regions or industries have lobbied hard to protect themselves

from foreign competition, and Congress has been compelled to try to push the costs of

adjustment onto other countries.

Since the 1970s, the US has been more likely to initiate conflicts with Canada, more likely to take

a hard line rather than seeking compromise, and more likely to consider the kinds of tough

bargaining strategies that it had disavowed during the early Cold War decades (e.g., coercive

issue-linkages). The US-Canada relationship is still special, at least relative to most of the United

States’ other international partnerships, but more so in the everyday business of bilateral

relations and not so much in times of stress. 18 Srdjan Vucetic, “The Anglosphere, Liberalism, and Race,” International Studies Association

conference, New York, February 17-20, 2010.

19 Livingston T. Merchant and A.D.P. Heeney, Canada and the United States: Principles for Partnership (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1965). John Sloan Dickey, “The Relationship in Rhetoric and Reality: Merchant-Heeney Revisited,” International Journal 27 (Winter 1971-72): 172-184.

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In recent decades, moreover, there has been a growing awareness in the US that Canadians are

not necessarily “just like” Americans.20

Conservatives in the US have been increasingly

frustrated by Canadian policies on issues that they care about, including the partial legalization

of marijuana, gay marriage, gun control, refugee and asylum policies, and—more recently—

health care. The diplomatic tensions surrounding the war in Iraq and Canada’s decision not to

participate directly in ballistic missile defense, moreover, shook Americans’ confidence in

Canada as a reliable and like-minded ally. These differences provoked some recrimination in the

US, and a few conservative pundits have gone so far as to identify Canada as a kind of anti-model

for the United States. But, just as Canadians’ anti-American impulses have been tamed by direct

experience, so Americans’ frustrations have been tempered by their own experience and by the

goodwill built up over decades of “special relationship” closeness.

US-Mexico Relations: Helping Hand or Clenched Fist?

It is obvious that not many of the underlying attributes we usually associate with special

relationships are present in the Mexico-US case. There is no shared culture, as in the case of the

paradigmatic US-UK or US-Canada cases. For that matter, Mexico’s special relationship—as that

of most Latin American countries—has been established with Spain.21 As the US envoy to Spain

argued in a 1826 letter intended to persuade the crown to make peace with its former colonies,

“the influence of a community of origin, language, religion, and manners, in determining the

intercourse among them” meant that the trade of the new nations “would immediately take the

direction of Spain,” as “the splendid example of England and the United States” had shown.22

20 Brian Bow, “Not So Close: Revisiting the ‘Psychological-Cultural Dimension’ in US-Canada

Relations,” in Greg Anderson and Christopher Sands, eds., Remembering ‘Forgotten Partnership’ (New York: Cambria Press, forthcoming). See also: David Macdonald, “Anti-Americanism and Anti-Canadianism: A New Look at Canada-US Relations,” paper presented to the International Studies Association conference, San Francisco, March 24-27, 2008.

Furthermore, as a note sent to Congress by the executive explaining the importance of the US

attending Panama Congress that same year pointed out, the new republics “form one whole

21 Joaquín Roy and Albert Galisoga, eds., The Ibero-American Space: Dimensions and Perceptions of the Special Relationship between Spain and Latin America (Miami: University of Miami, 1997). Alison Brysk, Craig Parsons, and Wayne Sandholtz, “After Empire: National Identity and Post-Colonial Families of Nations,” European Journal of International Relations 8:2 (June 2002): 267-305.

22 “Conciliatory Intervention with Spain to Make Peace with Mexico and the Central and South American Governments,” Mr. Alexander H. Everett, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, to the Duke del Infantado, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Madrid, January 20, 1826, pp. 1013, 1014.

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family in language, religion, law, historical fortunes, and present political alliance. From this

family, as far as the enumerated circumstances go, we are necessarily excluded.”23 Moreover, as

noted, despite their proximity, relations between the US and Mexico are far less close and

collaborative than those between the US and Canada, with relatively limited consultation, and

few signs of the kind of special considerations evident in the latter relationship. Cooperation on

extra-regional issues is strikingly limited, particularly on defense. There has certainly been

some collaboration on regional matters, such as boundary waters, but the US approach to

relations with Mexico often seems to be based on seeing Mexico as a problem, rather than a

partner. As a former Mexican representative to the UN Security Council put it, compared to

Washington’s familial relations with other countries of the Anglosphere, those it entertains with

Mexico are just “a casual weekend fling.”24

But if we leave aside the straightforward “being better” sense of the special relationship notion,

and focus exclusively on its “being different” meaning, then we can make the case that Mexico

has established such a relation with its northern neighbor.25 Context matters. In the milieu of

the western hemisphere, Mexico and the United States have developed a special relationship of

sorts. As Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in the aftermath of the Chilean coup d’état, told his

Mexican counterpart when the latter suggested to him to “play it very cool at this moment”:

“you’ll be my chief associate in Latin American policy.”26

There have been several actors and practitioners who have argued that Mexico and the United

States have developed a special relationship, relative to other countries in Latin America.27

23 On the Mission to Panama, Communicated to the House of Representatives, March 25, 1826, p.

901.

24 Obituary: Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, The Economist, June 16, 2005.

25 Dumbrell and Schäfer “Introduction: The Politics of Special Relationships,” p. 4.

26 TELCON, Mexican Foreign Minister Rabasa/HAK, September 18, 1973. National Archives of the United States.

27 Sergio Aguayo, Myths and (Mis)Perceptions: Changing US Elite Visions of Mexico (La Jolla, CA: University of California/San Diego, 1998). Bruce M. Bagley, “Interdependencia y política estadounidense hacia México en los años ochenta,” in Riordan Roett, ed., México y Estados Unidos: El manejo de la relación (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1989). Jorge G. Castañeda, “México y el nuevo orden mundial,” Los grandes cambios de nuestro tiempo: la situación internacional, América Latina y México, III. México y los cambios de nuestros tiempos (México: UNAM/CONACULTA/FCE, 1992). Susana Chacón, La relación entre México y los Estados Unidos (1940-1955): Entre el conflicto y la cooperación (México: FCE/ITESM,2008). Mario Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México (México: COLMEX, 1984). Josefina Z. Vázquez and Lorenzo Meyer, México frente a Estados Unidos: Un ensayo histórico, 1776-2000 (México: FCE 2003). Jesús Velasco Márquez, “Cooperación y conflicto en las relaciones México-Estados Unidos: un enfoque histórico,” in Olga Pellicer and

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According to this general understanding, Mexico’s special relationship with its northern

neighbor is coterminous with its right to dissent on matters of foreign policy. Thus, whereas the

US has kept a tight lid on most of the hemisphere, it has been prepared to accept Mexico City to

publicly disagree on issues it considers important, as long they are not crucial for the US. The

most often cited example is Mexico’s policy towards Castroist Cuba.

It is usually understood, however, that this special relationship emerged as a result of the

experiences of World War II. During those years, Mexico decidedly supported its northern

neighbor, and the latter reciprocated with special concessions. It was not just that the United

States was rewarding Mexico’s loyalty, or that the close collaboration had instilled mutual

confidence in them, though. There was a quid pro quo in the emerging modus operandi: by the

late 1930s it had become clear to Washington that its benign indifference towards its southern

neighbor’s foreign policy would contribute to the latter’s political stability. Thus, on the eve of

World War II, in the context of a highly contested presidential election, Washington’s “implicit

support” to the Mexican government, arguably prevented another revolution from taking

place.28 Furthermore, since Washington had a vested interest in a stable neighbor, the granting

of relative independence on foreign affairs was a modest price to pay.29 It is upon this realm that

the crux of Mexico’s special relationship with the United States hinges. That is, it actually had

more to do with domestic politics than with foreign relations.30

Furthermore, Washington obliged and showed a relatively moderate behavior toward its

neighbor—as compared to its conduct toward other countries of the region. For better or worse,

the United States not only abstained from subverting or overthrowing Mexican governments, as

it did in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Chile or Nicaragua, to name just a few examples,

but actually supported them consistently. As the post-revolutionary regime became

consolidated, it became clear to Washington that the formally democratic but actually

authoritarian regime south of the Rio Grande was something it could live with; this led to the

Rafael Fernández de Castro, México y Estados Unidos: las rutas de la cooperación, eds., (México: SER/IMRED/ITAM, 1998). Jorge Chabat in El Universal, August 16, 2002.

28 Frank Tannenbaum, “Personal Government in Mexico,” Foreign Affairs 27:1 (October 1948): 44-57, p. 45.

29 Lorenzo Meyer, “La construcción histórica de la soberanía y del nacionalismo mexicanos,” in Ilán Bizberg, ed., México ante el fin de la Guerra Fría (México: COLMEX, 1998), p. 90.

30 Soledad Loaeza, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz y la Guerra Fría (October 2, 2008), accessed on-line July 28, 2010: http://www.soledadloaeza.com.mx/?p=60

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“limited concord” the two countries had achieved by the early 1940s, as Mexican historian

Daniel Cosío Villegas noted at the time.31

Perhaps the more intriguing part of the alleged specialness of the bilateral relationship,

however, was its surreptitious nature: unlike the US-UK relationship, although in some respects

similar to the US-Canada case, it was a relationship that did not dare to speak its name. The tacit

agreement reached between the two countries since the late 1930s became the hemisphere’s

best-kept secret. Mexico’s relative freedom from US meddling in its domestic politics became

truly remarkable in the region—perhaps even more than its relatively autonomous foreign

policy. There were of course reasons to be discrete: Mexican leaders were aware enough of the

abovementioned widespread anti-American sentiments in the country to not go around

bragging about having too close a relationship with Washington. As historian Howard Cline

noted, by the Second World War’s end, the two countries had reached “a consummate and

perfect social agreement that did not require public love utterances to assure the participants

and the world that everything [was] alright.”32 Mexican leaders purposefully lacked an explicit

special relationship narrative; instead they offered an implicit one to Washington: we are unlike

the rest of Latin America because we have a stable, (formally) democratic regime.33

There was, however, a deeper context that made this mutual understanding possible: the

normative structure constituted by the Western Hemisphere Idea (WHI)—which interestingly

excluded Canada, being as it was an imperial outpost. In his farewell address, Thomas Jefferson

expressed the hope that the countries of the hemisphere would coalesce “in an American system

of policy,” and a few years later he wrote that the governments to be formed in the nascent

states, “will be American governments, no longer to be involved in the never-ceasing broils of

Europe… America has a hemisphere to itself. It must have a separate system of interest which

31 Josefina Z. Vázquez and Lorenzo Meyer, México frente a Estados Unidos, p. 200. Alan Knight,

“¿Relaciones especiales? Una comparación de las relaciones Gran Bretaña-Estados Unidos y México-Estados Unidos,” in Rafael Fernández de Castro, Lawrence Whitehead, and Natalia Saltalamachia, eds., ¿Somos especiales? Las relaciones de México y Gran Bretaña con Estados Unidos: una visión comparada (México: Cámara de Diputados/ITAM/COMEXI/Porrúa, 2000), p. 67.

32 Alan Knight, “Cómo lidiar con el sistema político estadounidense: Una visión histórica 1910-1995,” in Rodolfo O. de la Garza and Jesús Velasco, eds., México y su interacción con el sistema político estadounidense (México: Porrúa/CIDE, 2000), p. 27. Alan Knight 2006, p. 46.

33 Friedrich Katz, “La Guerra fría en América Latina,” in Daniela Spenser, Espejos de la guerra fría: México, América Central y el Caribe (México: Porrúa/SRE/CIESAS, 2004), p. 27.

14

must not be subordinated to those of Europe.”34 Jefferson’s statements were, according to

Arthur P. Whitaker, “the first flowering” of the WHI.35 Thus, when the Monroe Doctrine was

formulated it was received by Mexico’s first president, Guadalupe Victoria, as a “memorable

promise” on Washington’s part.36 As a Parisian newspaper put it in 1824, the “wise Monroe” had

firmly traced “the limits of the New World.”37

The common characteristic of this separate “system of interests” was the form of government of

its constituent units: republicanism. Thus, during the debates in the Mexican Congress leading

to the establishment of the Republic in 1824, the “idealization” of the northern neighbor’s

political institutions was manifest.38 The first US ambassador to Mexico Joel Poinsett, made it

clear that his country had seen “with unfeigned satisfaction” that Mexico had “erect[ed] itself

into a sister republic,” adopting “a Federal Constitution so similar” to that of his country.39 As

Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman noted, the United States, “the other America,” was both

the model and hope of the emerging Latin American nations.40

Thus, by the third decade of the

nineteenth century, the Americas emerged as a separate subsystem in world politics.

However, there was also an important fault line running through the hemisphere: the one

existing between the United States and the Latin America states. For the latter, the principle of

non-intervention was of equal or greater importance than the lofty ideals and commonality of

interests Washington emphasized. The 1846-48 war with Mexico, and the increasing imperialist

adventures of the United States at the turn of the twentieth century were all too present;

furthermore, Washington came to unconditionally accept the non-intervention principle only in

the second half of the 1930s. It was thus this composite understanding (as reflected, for

instance, in the 1948 constitutive charter of the regional organization, which emphasizes both

34 Charles Hughes, “Observations on the Monroe Doctrine,” The American Journal of International

Law, 17:4 (1923), p. 626. Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, The Western Hemisphere: Its Influence on United States Policies to the End of World War II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), p. 14.

35 Arthur Whitaker, The Western Hemisphere Idea: Its Rise and Decline (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954), p. 29.

36 Guadalupe Victoria, Correspondencia Diplomática (México: SRE, 1986), p. 299.

37 William S. Robertson, “The Monroe Doctrine Abroad in 1823-24,” The American Political Science Review 6:4 (1912): p. 555.

38 Josefina Z. Vázquez, “The Mexican Declaration of Independence,” The Journal of American History 85:4 (1999), p. 1363.

39 William S. Robertson, “The First Legations of the United States in Latin America,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 2:2 (1915), p. 204.

40 Edmundo O’Gorman, La invención de América (México: FCE, 2003), p. 156.

15

representative democracy and the sovereign independence of the American states) that has

constituted the WHI. In the Cold War context, with Washington’s aggressive anticommunist

crusade in the continent, the tension between the two constitutive principles of the hemispheric

normative structure was evident—and the Latin American states became highly sensitive about

US intervention. As a Mexican diplomat and scholar on foreign relations put it ten years after the

regional organization had come into existence, “[w]hile this fear exists… the cornerstone of the

[I]nter-American system, its guiding principle, will not be democracy, but intransigent non-

intervention.”41

It was within this complex structure that México and the United States were able to work out a

stable understanding around the time World War II broke out. Mexican leaders, without

claiming to have any sort of special relationship with its northern neighbor, once and again

emphasized the bona fide nature of their regime, and even recognized Washington’s leadership

in defending democracy in the Western Hemisphere. As Charles Kupchan has noted, cultural

commonalities—which undeniably existed between the two closest sides of the “great American

dichotomy”—are an important precondition in the process by which enemies sometimes

become friends.42 These shared attributes endow the parties with a common language to draw

on in their attempt at constructing a closer relationship. Thus, for instance, in 1947 president

Miguel Alemán referred to the United States as a “strong and prosperous” country that struggled

with the “immense responsibilities” it had to bear “under the moral sign of democracy.”43

Similarly, three decades later, in the context of the Middle East conflict, Mexican Foreign

Minister Rabasa called his US counterpart to thank him for “bringing peace to the world;” “we

know you are trying and it is to the benefit of the whole world,” the Mexican diplomat said.44

These were utterances that fell well within the framework of the WHI. There was thus no claim

to have any special connection to the country that was perceived as a historic foe—and not only

of the country, but also of all of Latin America.

41 Kathryn Sikkink, “Reconceptualizing Sovereignty in the Americas: Historical Precursors and

Current Practices,” Houston Journal of International Law 19:3 (Spring 1997): 705-729, p. 727.

42 Edmundo O'Gorman, “La gran dicotomía americana: Angloamérica e Iberoamérica,” Vuelta (September 1977): 4-7. Charles Kupchan, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 8.

43 Respuesta de Alemán a discurso de bienvenida de Truman a Washington el 29 de abril de 1947, Archivo Histórico Diplomático, México, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores.

44 TELCON, Emilio Rabasa/Secretary Kissinger. March 26, 1975. National Archives of the United States.

16

Washington, for its part, replied in kind. Thus, for instance, when in the aftermath of World War

II, US ambassador to Mexico George S. Messermith wrote the State Department noting that the

most he could do in the context of the forthcoming (1946) presidential elections was to make

vague pronouncements in favor of free elections, he pointed out: “I do not think we can be as

specific with respect to Mexico at this time as we have been with respect to those [i.e., other

Latin American] countries.”45 Two decades later, also in an electoral context, US secretary of

State Thomas Mann had to remind his ambassador in Mexico of “the magic words”: “we do not

intervene in Mexico’s internal affairs.”46 Washington valued the stability associated with “the

smooth transition of a civil president to another every six years”—even if this was done in what

was in fact a “one-party state.”47 Thus, when the foreign minister of the ostensibly anti-

imperialist—and authoritarian—president Echeverría called president Nixon’s National

Security Advisor to convey a message of gratitude from his principal after a successful trip to

the United States, Kissinger politely belittled the acknowledgment: “you know how much

importance we attach to this relationship. I did it for ourselves.”48 Stability thus trumped

democracy. Washington knew the risk was that, as a 1989 Pentagon internal document put it,

“[a] democracy opening in Mexico could test the special relationship by bringing into office a

government more interested in challenging the US on economic and nationalist grounds.”49

The Security Relationships

It is in the area of defense and security cooperation that the differences between the US-Canada

and US-Mexico relationships are most striking, and where the main reasons for these

differences are most readily apparent. Canada, as a relatively weak country holding onto a vast

territory, and with a major stake in global stability, has since World War Two been an active

promoter of global peace and stability through international institutions like the UN. And,

recognizing both shared interests and an ongoing opportunity to earn goodwill in Washington,

it has been a hard-working and generally reliable ally and supporter of the United States, both 45 US Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1946:

Volume XI (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 973.

46 US Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968: Volume XXXI (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 739.

47 Background Paper, Visit of President Diaz Ordaz, October 26-28, 1967; Memorandum for Zbigniew Brzezinski, from Rick Inderfurth—Subject: Stability in Mexico. January 19, 1979; Carter Center.

48 TELCON, Foreign Secretary Rabasa/HAK. June 26, 1972; National Archives of the United States.

49 Jacqueline Mazza, Don’t Disturb the Neighbors. The United States and Democracy in Mexico, 1980-1995 (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 64.

17

within the “continental” neighborhood and overseas.50

Whereas Canada has always been

concerned about not having a seat at the table, Mexico—having been crushed and humiliated by

the US in the 1840s—is most anxious to avoid being dominated by its powerful northern

neighbor. It has therefore formally repudiated the use of force abroad, been a strong defender of

the principle of national sovereignty, and—with a few notable exceptions—has rejected US calls

for closer defense cooperation. After 9/11, US defense relations with Canada have become a

little more distant, and those with Mexico have become a little closer, but the old pattern of

difference is still readily apparent.

There are two main layers to the US-Canada defense relationship: a transatlantic/multilateral

track, anchored in NATO and the UN, and a continental/bilateral track, anchored in NORAD. In

the transatlantic/multilateral track, Canada is but one of many close allies, tied to the US by

common challenges, and seeking negotiated compromises through formal multilateral

institutions. This active multilateralism was driven partly by internationalist impulses and

partly by a strategic interest in using rules and the weight of numbers to restrain and redirect

US power;51

in this, Canada was much like other NATO allies, but very much unlike Mexico.

Though the US and Canadian governments have parted ways on some important issues, Canada

has generally proven to be a steadfast and creative supporter to the US, and has been rewarded

for its loyalty with extensive and intimate consultation when the two are in agreement, and with

flexibility and self-restraint when they are not.

Defense cooperation in the continental/bilateral track has been played out both through formal,

integrative institutions and through informal network connections. The 1958 NORAD

agreement created an even more integrative command structure than NATO’s, with virtually

unlimited intelligence-sharing and with American military officers reporting directly to

Canadian commanders (and vice versa). Equally importantly, Canadian and American military

officers have built up extensive and intensive networks of personal relationships, and have

often worked together to lobby their respective governments in pursuit of shared political

objectives.

50 Here again we are using “continental” to refer only to the US and Canada, just as American and

Canadian policy-makers tended to do at the time (see note 12, above).

51 Tom Keating, Canada and World Order: The Multilateralist Tradition in Canadian Foreign Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 2008).

18

Many observers have attributed the apparent weakening of the bilateral defense relationship

since 9/11 to the tensions created by diplomatic clashes over the war in Iraq and ballistic

missile defense. Those tensions did stir resentment in Washington, and raised doubts about

whether Canada was still a loyal supporter to the US. But the more important challenges to the

bilateral defense relationship are the long-run deterioration of Canada’s defense capabilities

since the 1960s, the two governments’ divergent perceptions of the new security challenges

after 9/11, and the creation of the US Department of Homeland Security and of US NORTHCOM

as a new regional combatant command for North America, the latter having partially displaced

NORAD as the foundation for US strategic defense planning.52

Though the US-Canada defense

relationship now seems to be less special than it was during the early Cold War years, we can

see in comparison with other allies that it remains exceptionally extensive, collaborative, and

generally “easy.”

The conspicuously subdued US influence during the Cold War on Mexico’s security doctrine in

general, and defense policy in particular, is puzzling. As John Cope has noted, “Relations

between Mexico and the US on defense matters have followed rules and procedures different

from those existing between Washington and Ottawa or between Washington and the rest of

Latin America.”53 Similarly, Sergio Aguayo recently observed that although the US wanted to

have an explicit military alliance with Mexico, it “always felt frustrated” because Mexico would

not agree to it.54

For existential (i.e., history and identity related) reasons, Mexico had an intense

preference to distance itself from Washington and from the national security discourse it

promoted.

The 1910 Mexican Revolution is the cornerstone of the country’s national and foreign policy

doctrine, as well as the origin of the country’s armed forces. The fact that the army was under

civilian control gave rise to a unique military culture in Latin America. Its consolidation,

however, did not have an outward-oriented purpose, but rather a domestic one. The main

doctrine for the military forces was revolutionary nationalism, centered on national sovereignty

52 Christopher Sands, “An Independent Security Policy for Canada in the Age of Sacred Terror?” in

Brian Bow and Patrick Lennox, eds., An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada?: Challenges and Choices for the Future (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).

53 John A. Cope, “En busca de la convergencia: las relaciones militares entre México y Estados Unidos en el umbral del siglo XXI,” in Sergio Aguayo and John Bailey, eds., Las seguridades de México y Estados Unidos en un momento de transición (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1997), p. 235.

54 Sergio Aguayo, in Reforma, August 29, 2007.

19

and independence from the United States; it was implicit and defensive, resting chiefly on moral

and legal grounds.55

As noted above, there was a period around World War II in which the interests of Mexico and

the US generally converged.56 Accordingly, bilateral cooperation increased, even in security

matters. As president Avila Camacho noted at the time, “In the testing days to come, the United

States can rest assured of the sincerity of our solidarity.”57 Thus, for instance, in the early 1940s

the two countries established the Mexican-US Defense Commission, and the next year Mexico

allowed the US to use ports (both maritime and aerial) in its territory, as well as to construct

radar stations.58

Mexico also sent an air squadron to the Pacific War.

During the early Cold War it became obvious that continuing an amicable working relationship

was in both countries’ interests—although the military component of the relationship

concluded with the war. Furthermore, Mexico was anything but enthusiastic about the 1948

Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, considering it a US instrument. Mexico

reminded Washington that it was “different from the other Latin American states,” and

therefore would refuse to participate with armed forces in the defense of the hemisphere.59

55 Guadalupe González González, “Los desafíos de la modernización inconclusa: estabilidad,

democracia y seguridad nacional en México,” in Sergio Aguayo and John Bailey, eds., Las seguridades de México y Estados Unidos en un momento de transición (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1997), p. 145-146. Michael J. Dziedzic, “Mexico,” in Douglas J. Murray and Paul R. Viotti, eds., The Defense Policies of Nations: A Comparative Study (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 119.

However, and consistently with the framework of the normative structure that served as the

basis of the “special relationship,” in 1946 soon-to-be president Miguel Alemán had assured US

diplomats that, were there to occur a confrontation between their country and the Soviet Union,

56 Jesús Velasco Márquez, “La relación especial de México y Estados Unidos: una realidad no reconocida,” in Rafael Fernández de Castro, Lawrence Whitehead and Natalia Saltalamacchia, eds., ¿Somos especiales? Las relaciones de México y Gran Bretaña con Estados Unidos: una visión comparada (México: Cámara de Diputados/ITAM/COMEXI, 2006), p. 92.

57 Manuel Ávila Camacho, México y la Guerra en el Pacífico (México: Archivo Histórico Diplomático, 1941), p. 12.

58 Raúl Benítez Manaut, “Soberanía, política exterior y seguridad nacional en México: 1821-1990,” Revista Mexicana de Administración Pública 98 (1998): p. 63-64. Guadalupe González and Stephen Haggard, “The United States and Mexico: A Pluralistic Security Community?,” in Emmanuel Adler and Michael N. Barnett, Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 306.

59 US Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954: Volume IV (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1983), p. 1327.

20

Mexico would give its complete support to Washington.60 Moreover, during the 1962 missile

crisis, a high government official told the US embassy that in his opinion “there was no

alternative for any American country but to live up to the Rio Treaty and to support the type of

resolution desired by the US.”61 Appropriately, the López Mateos’ government decisively sided

with the Kennedy administration, arguing that the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba

constituted “a threat to the peace and security of the hemisphere.”62

Such sign of solidarity

notwithstanding, that same year Mexico cast the sole dissenting vote on the suspension of Cuba

from the regional organization.

Around the time of the first Gulf War (1991), the idea of collaborating with the US-led

international liberation force was floated in Mexican political and military circles. Tellingly, it

was soon discarded on the grounds the country’s foreign policy doctrine prevented it from

taking part in military affairs by which it was not directly affected. Even after NAFTA came into

effect (1994), and the fact that unipolarity in world affairs was not going to be a fleeting

moment had become plain, Mexico did not substantially change its foreign and security

policies.63 As Michael Dziedzic noted around that time, “defense policy in Mexico responds

principally to domestic stimuli.”64

This is not to say that there has been no security cooperation between the US and Mexico since

the 1940s. In 1996, the Mexican government established a High Level Contact Group, made up

of officials from four Mexican ministries (Foreign Relations, Defense, Navy, Health) and the

office of the Attorney General.65

60 María Emilia Paz, Strategy, Security, and Spies: Mexico and the US as Allies in World War II

(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), p. 244.

But Mexico’s standoffish position on its security relationship

with Washington continued. Thus, in 9/11’s aftermath both the general public and the

61 Telegram from Mexico City to Secretary of State. October 22, 1962. National Archives of the United States.

62 Aguayo 1998, op cit, p. 111.

63 Leonardo Curzio, La seguridad nacional en México y la relación con Estados Unidos (México: UNAM/CISAN, 2007), pp. 105, 112.

64 Dziedzic 1994, op cit., p.110.

65 Martha Bárcena Coqui, “México y Estados Unidos en el contexto internacional y sus intereses de seguridad nacional,” in Agustín Maciel, La seguridad nacional en las relaciones México-Estados Unidos (San Luis Potosí: El Colegio de San Luis, 2003), p. 24.

21

government refused to support Washington on its military actions in Iraq—even when the

country was in the delicate situation of holding a temporary seat at the UN Security Council.66

In 2002 Mexico and the United States signed a “smart border” agreement, and in 2005 the two

countries plus Canada entered into the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The 2007 Merida

Initiative does constitute a significant step in bilateral collaboration—including the transfer of

financial resources from Washington to Mexico City—but it is nevertheless mostly confined to

issues pertaining to drug trafficking, and does not really address the broader security

relationship. Even the recently created NORTHCOM has not substantially changed the level of

cooperation: its interaction with Mexico is limited to drug matters and high officers’ visits with

Mexican brass.67 Although some observers have argued that the now defunct SPP and the

Merida Initiative opened the door to a new security relationship, those expectations have not

materialized yet. Thus, in contrast to the security community established between Washington

and Ottawa, almost a decade after the terrorist attacks Mexico and the United States are far from

establishing one. As Kupchan notes, “identity politics [have] played a major role” in the different

security relationships of Canada and Mexico with their common neighbor.68

The Economic Relationships

The economic relationships between the US and Canada and between the US and Mexico are

also very different, and again, the main reasons are fairly obvious. As an advanced industrial

economy, which also happens to be highly dependent on exports of raw commodities, Canada

has historically worked very closely with the US to try to promote an open world economy, and

to work out integrative regimes to ensure continuing access to American markets and capital.

Mexico, as a developing economy struggling to kick-start its industrialization, chose instead to

try to separate itself from the US with a wall of tariffs and investment restrictions. Though often

frustrated by its neighbors’ efforts to chart their own developmental courses, the US was

ultimately prepared to accommodate them both. And when each of them proposed negotiations

on a bilateral free trade deal, the US seized these opportunities to try to reinforce market

66 Consulta Mitofski, Encuesta telefónica nacional No. XXXI: Atentados terroristas en Estados Unidos,

September 18, 2001, accessed on-line: www.consulta.com.mx/interiores/99_pdfs/12_mexicanos_pdf/ei_atentados_2001.pdf

67 Steve Bowman and James Crowhurst, “Homeland Security: Evolving Roles and Missions for United States Northern Command,” Congressional Research Service, November 16, 2006, p. 5.

68 Kupchan, How Enemies Become Friends, p. 65.

22

reforms in each of its neighbors, and to use the negotiations to pioneer new kinds of trade

regime breakthroughs (e.g., trade in services, intellectual property).

Just as with security cooperation, there are two main layers to US-Canada economic relations: a

transatlantic/multilateral track and a continental/bilateral track. Within the multilateral track,

the two governments generally worked closely together to promote a more open world

economy, primarily through formal multilateral institutions like the GATT/WTO, IMF and World

Bank. There have been frictions on difficult issues like agricultural subsidies and

extraterritoriality, and these have tended to capture most of our attention, but the underlying

pattern is again one of consistent, close cooperation. Most of the economic connections between

the US and Canada are direct, bilateral ones, and these have historically been characterized by a

tendency toward informal collaboration and compromise, usually through direct “management”

by front-line bureaucrats.69

US policy-makers were very tolerant of Canadian economic free-riding during the early Cold

War decades, just as they were with the Europeans and Japanese, but were even more inclined

to work out special arrangements or policy-exceptions for Canada, based on the general

expectation that these would directly benefit the US economy in the long run. Bilateral tensions

often flared over trade and investment, but officials on both sides consistently approached these

as “‘problems’ to be solved, rather than…confrontations to be won.”70 In most cases, the two

governments responded with an informal gentleman’s agreement to co-manage policy frictions,

such as the exceptionally generous and repeatedly-expanded quota for Canadian oil within the

Mandatory Oil Import Program of the 1960s.71

69 Kal J. Holsti and Thomas Allen Levy, “Bilateral Relations and Transgovernmental Relations

between Canada and the United States,” International Organization 28 (1974): 875-901.

Informal co-management has consistently been

preferred as the best way to avoid domestic political disruptions, but there have also been some

issues where the two governments have chosen to create formal institutions to manage the

problem. Many of these—like the International Joint Commission created by the Boundary

Waters treaty of 1909, the Defense Production Sharing Agreement of 1959, and the “Auto Pact”

agreement of 1962—have been remarkable both in terms of the basic equality of the two

governments within the regime and the regime’s capacity to restrain or redirect national policy-

making.

70 Kal J. Holsti, “Canada and the United States,” in Steven Spiegel and Kenneth Waltz, eds., Conflict in World Politics (Boston: Winthrop, 1971).

71 Tammy Nemeth, “Canada-US Oil and Gas Relations, 1958 to 1974,” PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2007.

23

After its initial enthusiasm for economic integration in the 1950s, Canada became increasingly

wary of putting all of its economic eggs in the American basket during the 1960s and 1970s, and

provoked the US with a series of restrictive new trade and investment policies, like the various

efforts to protect Canadian “cultural industries” in the 1960s and the notorious National Energy

Program in the early 1980s. US officials were frustrated by these policies, but usually responded

by seeking to work out some kind of compromise. In the mid-1980s, Canada changed course by

proposing to negotiate a free trade agreement, thereby vindicating generations of American

policy-makers who’d long maintained that such a deal was inevitable.72

The negotiation of the

free trade agreement represented not only an effort by both governments to “lock in” domestic

market reforms, but also a recognition on both sides that domestic political changes had made it

much harder—if not impossible—to carry on with the kind of informal “co-management” that

had been so successful in the 1950s and 1960s, at least when it came to politically sensitive

trade and investment issues. Nevertheless, while the number of formal, integrative agreements

has grown, there is still an enduring inclination on both sides to try to work out informal

political settlements, through “quiet diplomacy” and ongoing collaboration.

The prosperity of the 1990s assuaged most Canadians’ anxieties about the economic and

political risks associated with closer economic ties with the US, but there are still many that

worry “deeper integration” will destroy what’s left of Canada’s sovereignty and identity.

Americans, on the other hand, had few concerns about signing the free trade deal in 1987, but

closer economic ties have alerted them to the fact that Canada has different ways of doing

things, some of which (e.g., medical marijuana, gay marriage) have provoked frustration and

resentment, at least among US conservatives. Yet the vast majority of Americans still have very

positive—albeit uninformed—perceptions of Canada, and a substantial majority would

welcome even closer ties between the two countries.73

72 See, for example, George Ball’s infamous reference to Canadian economic nationalism as a

“rearguard action against the inevitable,” in The Discipline of Power (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968), p. 113.

73 When US opinion survey respondents are asked about their impressions of various countries, Canada has consistently topped the list with about 90% of Americans reporting a “favorable” opinion; Britain and Australia are usually only a few percentage points behind. Lydia Saad, “Americans’ Most and Least Favored Nations,” Gallup.com March 3, 2008, accessed on-line February 10, 2010: http://www.gallup.com/poll/104734/Americans-Most-Least-Favored-Nations.aspx

24

Around the beginning of World War Two the political and economic relations between Mexico

and the United States had left behind the two contentious decades that followed the Mexican

revolution. By that time the Mexican regime had become more conservative, both politically and

economically. It was evident that the proximity to an economic powerhouse represented not

only a threat but also an opportunity: Mexico needed to gain access both to the market and to

the capital of the United States. The Roosevelt administration, on the other hand, had taken a

much more sympathetic view of the social and economic program of the post-revolutionary

regime. Thus, in 1942, the two countries negotiated the Friendship, Trade and Navigation

Treaty; the agreement was renewed three years later, and then jointly dissolved—at Mexico’s

initiative—in 1950. In the meantime, Mexico had refused the Washington-sponsored General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The country, however, was actively pursuing foreign

investment. As a 1946 advertisement of the Mexican government in the New York Herald

Tribune put it, it had hung out “the ‘Welcome’ sign” to foreign investment.74 Thus, US

ambassador Walter Thurston noted appreciatively in a 1948 memorandum: “There does not

seem to be any doubt that the Mexican government has opened the door to foreign capital.”75

However, the strong nationalist ideology prevented the nascent regime from adopting a purely

instrumentalist approach to its economic relations with its powerful neighbor. The political

aspect of what came to be known as economic sovereignty was thus put at the center. Although

bureaucrats in the trade and finance ministries enjoyed a great deal of autonomy when

designing the country’s foreign economic policy, Mexico followed a mostly closed economic

model for about four decades after World War II. With the Mexican economy growing

consistently during the first decades of the Cold War, Washington was willing to go along with

the nationalist, yet economically conservative, economic program of its southern neighbor;

Mexico had even become a model Washington wanted to promote among Third World

Countries.76 Mexican leaders were aware of the special treatment their country received from

its powerful neighbor. President-elect Díaz Ordaz, for instance, noted in 1964 that the access

granted to Mexican products to the US market was an “act of grace” on Washington’s part.77

74 Sanford Mosk, Industrial Revolution in Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950), p.

86.

75 Quoted in “Documentos que Publica el Depto. de Estado,” Excélsior, 24 January 1973, 1, A9-10.

76 Nick Cullather, “Model Nations: US Allies and Partners in Modernizing Imagination,” in Dumbrell and Schafer, eds., America’s Special Relationships.

77 Memorandum of a Conversation between President Johnson and President-Elect Díaz Ordaz. LBJ Ranch, Texas, November 13, 1964, 10:00-11:45 a.m.; US Secretary of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, South and Central America—Mexico, p. 745.

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Things started to change in the 1970s. Red flags appeared not only in the foreign accounts of the

Mexican economy, as it started to show a more erratic behavior; additionally, the Echeverría

administration enacted more nationalist foreign investment laws. The 1971 “Nixon Shock,”

coming three months after Secretary of State William P. Rogers had declared that the bilateral

relationship was based on both “communication and exchange” and in “the mutual respect for

the national dignity and identity,” had undoubtedly contributed to the make the bilateral

economic relationship more contentious.78 It was only after very serious economic crises took

place in 1976 and in 1982 that Mexico changed its economic paradigm—as well as its economic

relationship with the United States. In the late 1970s the López Portillo administration seriously

considered joining GATT, but the oil boom derailed the initiative—one that was strongly

supported by the Carter administration.79 Six years later, though, after the oil boom was over,

Mexico joined GATT, a move that contributed to some extent to the ameliorate the frictions that

had risen in the bilateral relationship at the time due to the different approaches the two

countries held regarding the Central American conflict. Washington remained aware that, as a

1987 presidential National Security Directive put it, “A political stable, economically healthy and

cooperative Mexico is of crucial importance to US national security,” but that, given that

“hostile” elements to the US were pervasive in Mexico, American officials should avoid their

country “becoming a major issued in the 1988 Mexican elections.”80

The signing of NAFTA in the early 1990s further signaled the Mexican commitment to economic

integration with the United States. Surprisingly, polls showed that between two third and fourth

fifths of the Mexican population were in agreement with the tightening of the bilateral economic

relationship.81 At the governmental level, though, the foreign ministry and other offices were

not enthusiastic about the proposal.82

78 “Desarrollo y Resultados de la X Junta Interparlamentaria México-Estados Unidos,” Comercio

Exterior XX:5 (1970), p. 387.

Former foreign minister Bernardo Sepúlveda, for

79 Dale Story, “Trade Politics in the Third World: A Case Study of the Mexican GATT Decision,” International Organization 36:4 (1982): 767-794.

80 National Security Decision, Directive Number 291, December 16, 1987; US Policy toward Mexico; National Archives of the United States.

81 Carlos Heredia, “NAFTA and Democratization in Mexico,” Journal of International Affairs 48:1 (Summer 1994): 13-38, p. 20. Neil Nevitte and Miguel Basáñez, “Trinational Perceptions,” in Robert Pastor and Rafael Fernández de Castro, eds., The Controversial Pivot: The US Congress and North America (Washington: Brookings Intitution Press, 1998), p. 158.

82 Carlos Salinas de Gortari, México, un paso difícil a la modernidad (México: Plaza & Janés, 2000), p. 65. Walter Astié-Burgos, Encuentros y desencuentros entre México y Estados Unidos en el siglo XX: Del porfiriato a la posguerra fría (México: Porrúa, 2007), p. 326.

26

instance, noted among the risks involved in closer economic ties with the United States the

subordination of the country’s relatively independent foreign policy.83 As the Mexican

ambassador to Washington at the time noted, with NAFTA México “crossed the Rubicon.”84

For Washington, Mexico’s about-face meant mostly a political victory—it had been suggesting

something along those lines for more than a decade. From the beginning, though, it became

clear that labor mobility, an issue in which Mexico had an enormous interest, was off the

agenda. (To Washington’s displeasure, in return Mexico excluded the oil sector). Also of political

significance was the fact that the United States was entering into a partnership with its southern

neighbor. The new stance caused strong opposition within the US, mainly from organized labor,

but also from conservative groups. Pat Buchanan, for instance, made it clear that he didn’t want

the United States to pursue further integration with Mexico—and not only for economic

reasons, but also because he perceived Mexicans as a cultural threat to the United States.85

During the legislative battle for NAFTA’s approval, on the other hand, former president Carter

declared that the agreement’s defeat would mean “an end to the movement to bring full

democracy to Mexico.”86

The agreement was a turning point in the bilateral relationship.

Economic relations became more institutionalized with NAFTA. Economic integration

between the two countries has increased exponentially since 1994. The 1995 Mexico bailout

was justified in the United States partly in terms of the new partnership.87

83 Bernardo Sepúlveda Amor, “Los intereses de la política exterior,” César Sepúlveda, ed., La política

internacional de México en el decenio de los ochenta, 24 (México: FCE, 1994).

This

institutionalization has not meant, however, the absence of conflict, particularly in sectors such

as agriculture and transportation services. The advent in 2000 of the first government not to

come from the pos-revolutionary regime created great expectations to broaden and deepen the

economic, social and political integrations, but they did not materialize. The 2005 SPP can be

considered an attempt to improve the existing arrangement at the margins; it success has been

very modest. Its major achievement has been an unintended side effect: the institutionalization

of the Leaders Summit. However, even that accomplishment seems to be in doubt now, as the

84 Jorge Montaño, Misión en Washington, 1993-1995: De la Aprobación del TLCAN al Préstamo de Rescate (México: Editorial Planeta, 2004).

85 “America First, NAFTA Never,” Washington Post, November 7, 1993.

86 Gwen Ifilll, “Clinton Recruits 3 Presidents to Promote Trade Pact,” New York Times, September 15, 1993, B1.

87 Pascal Beltrán del Río, “A debate, en Washington, lo que debe hacer el gobierno mexicano en materia de petróleo, política exterior, impuestos, migración, justicia…” Proceso 952 (1995), p. 9.

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Canadian government has set no date yet for this year’s annual meeting. In any case, more than

strictly economic, the relevance of the annual gathering is political.88

The US, Its Neighborhood, and the Future of North American Integration

The NAFTA agreement seemed to signal the building up of a new set of regional special

relationships, but the push to “deepen” NAFTA started to lose momentum within just a few

years, and has been almost completely derailed since 9/11—with the partial exception of

bilateral cooperation on border security. The three countries have become much more

integrated economically, but they have not made any real movement toward the kind of

political-institutional integration that we have seen in Europe,89

and there is still a lack of

“closeness” and common purpose between these neighbors, particularly between the two

“Anglo” countries and Mexico.

After the signing of NAFTA, many in Washington were optimistic that the deal could be used as a

diplomatic platform and an institutional model, which could be “deepened” within North

America and “broadened” to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. US Ambassador to Mexico

John Negroponte expressed in an internal memorandum his hope that the trade agreement

would “institutionalize the acceptance of a North American orientation in Mexico’s foreign

policy.”90 This ambition was shaken almost immediately by the eruption of the EZLN insurgency

on the same day NAFTA came into effect and the peso crisis in Mexico towards the end of the

same year, and then further worn down by the rise of anti-immigration sentiment in the US and

the onset of congressional deadlock in the late 1990s. The number of Americans that were

suspicious of NAFTA actually grew after the deal was passed, in spite of the fact that the US

economy was growing rapidly, because many on the left came to associate it with the

dislocations caused by globalization more broadly, and many on the right came to associate it

with illegal immigration.91

88 Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11,

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 439.

89 Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Note, however, that the explosive growth in trade and investment during the 1990s has been severely undercut by new security measures and economic contraction over the last decade, bringing the level of intra-regional trade back down to pre-NAFTA levels.

90 Confidential Memorandum from United States Embassy in Mexico to Secretary of State, April 1991; printed in Proceso 758:7 (May 13, 1991).

91 David M. Rankin, “Identities, Interests and Imports,” Political Behavior 28:4 (December 2001): 351-376.

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When the George W. Bush administration first came to power in 2001, there was some

optimism that it might be prepared to invest more in regional affairs, and even to be more

creative in tackling the immigration issue. The US president even went on record saying that

Mexico would be the first priority of his administration’s foreign policy.92

But whatever

momentum there might have been in early 2001 was swept away by 9/11. The terrorist attacks

had a profound double effect on the trilateral agenda: On one hand, they catalyzed a new

attention to the regional neighborhood in the US, and drove the Bush administration to seek out

new border security arrangements with Canada and Mexico. On the other hand, they nullified all

of the previous decade’s talk of “streamlining” borders and making them more efficient, and

raised new anxieties about the reliability of Canada and Mexico as regional allies. The SPP

initiative represented a feeble effort to reinvigorate the trilateral agenda after 9/11, but it

accomplished very little, and there seems to very little momentum now for any kind of regional

integration. One reason is simply that the US has many other, more pressing problems to face,

particularly after the onset of the ongoing economic crisis. But there is really nothing about the

recession itself that ought to derail the integration project; the recessions of the early 1980s and

early 1990s played an important part in catalyzing the CUSFTA and NAFTA negotiations, and

trilateral policy coordination could just as easily have been seen as a basis for recharging the

global competitiveness of all three countries. But the US seems to have grown more distant from

both of its neighbors, and there is not much that seems “special” about the way that either

bilateral relationship works today.

Canadian policy-makers have responded to this by trying to nudge Mexico into the background,

and playing up traditional arguments about the special bilateral relationship of the early Cold

War years. The salience of these arguments was shaken by the break over Iraq and BMD, but the

bigger problem for Canada is that these connections just don’t seem relevant or important to

most American policy-makers today. Calls for bilateral renewal haven’t made much of an

impression on the Obama administration so far, and Canadian concerns have languished near

the bottom of the White House’s priority list. Mexico, on the other hand, has received a fair

amount of attention from Washington in recent years, but not for the kinds of reasons it would

like. The Mexican government has worked hard to try to deal with a series of severe domestic

problems, some stemming from the government’s crackdown on drugs and organized crime,

and then more recently the outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic. These problems, in conjunction 92 Rafael Velázquez y Jorge A. Schiavon, “El 11 de septiembre y la relación México-Estados Unidos:

¿Hacia la securitización de la agenda?” Revista Enfoques VI:8 (2008), p. 64.

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with the economic crisis, have tended to reinforce the US public’s perception of Mexico as

dangerous, unpredictable and different. But the Calderon government has been cautiously

receptive to technical and financial help from the US in dealing with these problems, and there

has been a slow, gradual building up of informal connections between US and Mexico policy-

makers over the last few years. These elite connections won’t necessarily do anything to bridge

the broader societal divide, but they could conceivably lay some of the foundation for a new

political and diplomatic partnership, which could gradually evolve into a different sort of special

relationship.