The collapse of the German Weimar Republic in 1933, when Adolf Hitler — already a democratically elected chancellor — began to urge his supporters to take to the streets, demonize his critics and political opponents, to label the media as “enemies of the people,” subordinate the judiciary, science, and universities to politics, and to subsequently cancel elections, is a clear example of how a state and democracy can be destroyed from within.

In “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Karl Marx began the text with the famous phrase (originally formulated by Hegel) that history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

AMLO leaves a weakened and inefficient state

In Mexico, we have witnessed in these almost six years of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidential term a demolition of the state and its institutions. And no, before readers have a fit, I am not comparing López Obrador to Hitler or what is happening in Mexico in 2024 to Nazi totalitarianism in Germany in 1933. 

But on Election Day, the majority of the Mexican electorate unequivocally chose to give six more years to this administration’s vision of the nation. And the problem is that this project is potentially fraught with limitations and own goals, as we head towards the transition on Oct 1. One of the main challenges we as a country — and especially President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum — will face is receiving a deeply weakened and dysfunctional state.

The urgent issue of our time for the liberal state that we should all advocate for has nothing to do with its ideological orientation, or the size and vocation of the government in power, themes around which the right and the left have been in constant ideological and political-electoral struggle for decades. The central issue, in my view, is its efficiency and effectiveness.

The COVID-19 pandemic made this clear: the essential difference in how various nations around the world fared was not whether some governments were right-wing and others left-wing, or between democratic and authoritarian regimes; the essential fault line was between effective and ineffective governments.

What is happening today with the institutions of the Mexican state is simply the logical conclusion of the obsession that has largely driven López Obrador. From the beginning of his administration in 2018, the most serious danger on the horizon was always going to be an imperial presidency, all-powerful and centralizing, and the elimination of checks and balances as well as autonomous institutions that a generation of Mexicans laboriously worked to establish over more than three decades to anchor and deepen our nascent democracy.

Government institutions and agencies, as well as their powers and responsibilities, and the few relatively depoliticized civil service bureaucracies, have been eviscerated and cannibalized or, in the worst case, demolished.

The president has fundamentally sought to weaken Mexico’s institutions so that they cannot constrain him, purging them of cadres he considers disloyal to him and the Fourth Transformation (4T) movement. But this also means that he cannot rely on these institutions to generate growth, mitigate the costs of the pandemic that have not dissipated, resolve social conflicts, tackle growing public insecurity, leverage Mexico’s geostrategic assets, or even secure what he most desires: to leave a legacy.

Mexico must be more plural and open to the world

And all this also contains a great paradox: for a president who from day one boasted that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy,” it is precisely the weakness of his public policies, exacerbating the internal weaknesses of the country, that have opened fronts of pressure and vulnerability abroad, particularly with respect to the United States. Just look at the numerous examples related to the inability to manage migration flows, curb fentanyl trafficking, or address issues of civil aviation, fishing, agricultural exports, or maritime preservation to grasp the impact this is having on the country and the state’s capacities.

Therefore, we Mexicans and our society must continue to push for a country that is fully democratic, plural, tolerant, liberal, balanced, just, secure, with a market economy, open to the world, with a strong, solid, effective state.

And for this reason, I want more Mexico in the world and more of the world in Mexico; a state that relies on its professional diplomatic cadres, a nation that stops navel-gazing and floating aimlessly in the international system, that finds its moral compass and geopolitical bearings in a highly fluid global environment; that leaves behind old foreign policy crutches and paradigms; that decides to contribute to global public goods; that returns to being a weight in the multilateral arena, particularly on issues such as disarmament and nuclear proliferation, which today loom as emerging threats; that has the vision to design an integrated migration policy paradigm; that rediscovers its vocation to preserve biodiversity and once again lead on global climate change issues; and that recognizes the enormous value of promoting the country abroad, whether by rebuilding agencies to attract investment, designing a true cultural and creative industries promotion strategy, or confronting the brutal degradation of the credibility and perception of the country abroad.

History shows over and over that populism and demagoguery — on the left and the right —are shortcuts that often end in disaster; they fracture and polarize societies and divide people into rival camps of intolerance. Instead of building the future, they always invoke the past, but nostalgia can neither be nor should be established as public policy.

Today in Mexico there are plenty of excuses, shouting and insults and a lack of rationality, debate and consensus. Listen, respect, tolerate, understand, converse, debate, reach consensus, build, negotiate, move forward. If someone finds those lost verbs somewhere, tell them that Mexico’s democracy is desperately looking for them.

At this turning point for the republic, I hope the president-elect recognizes this, and decides to act accordingly. We Mexicans urgently need it.

Arturo Sarukhan has had a distinguished education and career, serving as Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. (2007-2013), and in additional advisory roles in both Mexico and the U.S. Currently based in Washington, D.C., he writes about international issues for various media outlets and is a regular opinion columnist published on Mexico News Daily.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mexico News Daily, its owner or its employees.

The post Opinion: The risks to liberal democracy and an effective state in Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Some in Mexico and the U.S. may certainly not enjoy reading this, but there is one inescapable truth that has developed over time since the early 1990s, and accelerated following NAFTA’s approval. 

A deepening U.S.-Mexico relationship

This fact could fundamentally alter the nature of the relationship and entail a profound impact for North America and even the larger global community: Despite the rhetoric, despite the challenges of presidential campaigns in our two nations during 2024, Mexico and the United States are converging, both as societies and as economies.

Why, you ask?

The inescapable deepening and widening of our bilateral ties over these past decades, despite rhetoric in the US and shortsightedness in Mexico) and notwithstanding past mistakes, failures, and lost opportunities; current geopolitics and the ongoing recalibration of U.S. ties with China; the promise of the relocation of investment (the much touted nearshoring paradigm) and the deepening of essential supply chains; the energy revolution and the transition to a digital economy in North America.

Notwithstanding the current Mexican government’s ill-advised and myopic energy policies, all of this could add to economic growth and energy independence, efficiency, resilience, sustainability, and security for our region with increasingly integrated production platforms, adding economic and labor value throughout North America. It could also add a middle-income Mexico solidifying over the next decade; and the growing societal, cultural, and trans-border connectivity between communities. Add to that the fact that each country has its largest diaspora community living in the other. 

The challenges and opportunities ahead

However, this unique and complex partnership is now facing serious challenges, not least of which are foundering public perceptions on both sides of the border that will likely be turbocharged with the narrative surrounding the 2024 campaigns, and the fact that Mexico will be an electoral piñata, as all roads to the GOP nomination — and to the presidential campaign — pass through the Mexican border.

One of the keys to surmounting this challenge — one of perception rather than reality — is to foster the belief within either society that each is a stakeholder in the success of the other. A potent way to achieve this is via the power of sport, and of soccer in particular. 

Soccer could become a great societal connector between Mexico and the United States, and that is why during my tenure as Mexican ambassador in Washington, I started advocating for Mexico and the United States to co-host the 2026 World Cup, with host cities on both sides of the border, the opening match played in one country (Mexico), and the final in the other (the U.S). The transformative potential could be significant.

After several years of speeches, lobbying, advocacy and public diplomacy, President Barack Obama picked up on the idea and pitched it as a Mexico-U.S.-Canada World Cup bid during my last North American Leaders Summit as a serving ambassador, in 2012. The rest, as they say, is history.

What drove me in this obsession since I first pitched the idea (pun intended) in 2009?

Why the World Cup?

For starters, both nations boast a huge — and in the case of the U.S., an expanding — and enthusiastic fan base. Then there are the various communities throughout the U.S. who are passionate about soccer, particularly among the Gen X and Millennial demographics. One has only to witness how the MLS has taken off, the “Messi effect” in Miami, how Mexicans in the U.S. now follow the league there as well as Mexico’s league, or how Americans from San Diego would cross over into Tijuana to root for the Xolos, the local team there which they adopted as their own.

And most of the stadiums already exist in key host cities in both countries, and only need upgrading, so there would be no new costly behemoths or white elephants that go unused once the cup is over, like in South Africa or Qatar. Good existing air connectivity between both nations could be rapidly expanded, a trusted traveler program already in place between both countries would facilitate tourism, and our respective transportation infrastructures — and our rickety and outmoded joint border infrastructure in particular — could certainly benefit from governmental investment and upgrading.

Per a study conducted for the bid, the North American World Cup can generate a whopping US $5 billion in economic activity for the region, support roughly 40,000 jobs, and create a net benefit of up to $480 million per host city. 

But more importantly, I have always believed that nations throughout the course of history have succeeded thanks to human connections. A joint World Cup can be instrumental in changing ongoing narratives that both nations face in the world today, providing both nations with vital soft power projection and country branding tools.

For the U.S., which has hosted few mega-sports events since 2001, the World Cup could do wonders to break down the vision abroad of an isolated “Fortress America.”

For Mexico, it could underscore that it is one of the true global cultural superpowers in the world and that beyond the challenges of public security, the rule of law and migration, it has huge economic potential and growth in tandem with its two North American trading partners.

Showing the world North America’s potential

The Mexican, U.S. and Canadian governments, along with the private sectors of both nations and cultural institutions and the creative industries on both sides of the border need to seize the day and quickly come together to devise a common public diplomacy strategy and a campaign jointly implemented in the three World Cup host countries and also abroad, using culture, the arts, gastronomy and entertainment to connect our peoples, and convey to the rest of the world the potential of North America in the 21st century.

Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of the great Liverpool team of the 1960s and early ’70s —  the team I grew up loving as a young boy in Wales — once deadpanned that while some people thought that soccer was a matter of life and death, he was convinced it was much more important than that.

Soccer is never just about soccer. It reflects the crosscurrents and paradigm shifts of the world at a given time. For Mexico and the U.S., hosting the 2026 World Cup is also about more than just soccer. It is about both nations becoming better neighbors, about creating a sense of co-stakeholdership, and having both peoples become partners to success instead of accomplices to failure.

At the end of the day, it could send an extremely powerful message to the rest of the world regarding the nature and promise of our ties, and our three nations will come out winners, regardless of who wins the tournament. No surprise, therefore, that I am rooting for Mexico, the U.S. or Canada to lift the trophy on July 19, 2026!

Arturo Sarukhan has had a distinguished education and career, serving as Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. (2007-2013), and in additional advisory roles in both Mexico and the U.S. Currently based in Washington, D.C., he writes about international issues for various media outlets and is a regular opinion columnist published on Mexico News Daily.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mexico News Daily, its owner or its employees.

The post Opinion: North America should seize the day in World Cup 2026 appeared first on Mexico News Daily

As is the case in most countries (except at particular historical moments), foreign policy will not define how Mexicans end up voting at the polls. But it does have an essential impact on Mexico’s well-being, prosperity, security, and national interests.

That is why what we have witnessed these past weeks is alarming. 

Mexico’s aimless foreign policy  

There were 10 days in September in which President López Obrador once again turned his back on the world, ignored foreign policy, and gave the finger to both the rules-based international system and to international relations. His is a foreign policy adrift, with the unavoidable consequence of sending Mexico’s world credibility hurtling towards rock bottom.

First, the President did not attend (once again) a key summit of a mechanism to which Mexico belongs – the G20, in India – and missed his fifth United Nations General Assembly in a row. There will be no shortage of supporters of the 4T (López Obrador’s “fourth transformation” movement) who will argue: What difference does it make? Nothing happens in these forums.

López Obrador himself has taken to affirming the same in his increasingly contentious rhetoric against the U.N. But let’s see what actually did happen at two of these forums. 

At the G20, the chess game of global governance is being decided as other groups coalesce, such as the expanded BRICS.

And both at this summit and in the U.N. General Assembly, what sometimes matters more than anything else are the bilateral meetings of leaders that take place in parallel. The absence of the Mexican head of state means that our country lost opportunities for dialogue.

What is López Obrador’s international vision?

The last month seems to have come full circle in our country’s current international vision, with Mexico’s return to the G-77, an international forum that we abandoned as irrelevant in 1994 when we joined the OECD, and with a photo-op of the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary with her Russian counterpart in New York. Body language says a lot about the utter tone-deafness in this government when it comes to foreign policy and current events.

The cluelessness with which our president operates culminated in reversing himself, announcing that despite having previously confirmed his attendance, he wouldn’t be attending the APEC Summit in San Francisco in November (he since has pulled a U-turn on this, affirming a couple of weeks ago that he has reconsidered and would, after all, participate). The reason he gave at the time? The participation of Peru, a country with which “we have no relations”, according to López Obrador, though the two countries continue to have diplomatic relations. 

This last invective leads us to the cherry on the cake of these shocking 10 days of foreign policy blunders.

Is López Obrador provoking the U.S.?

It is not entirely clear whether the real reason for López Obrador’s about face regarding the APEC Summit had to do with Peruvian participation, or if in reality, this is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover up the fact that U.S. diplomats may have at the time nixed a bilateral meeting between López Obrador and Biden on the sidelines of the summit. This is perhaps not surprising in the context of the shameful and unjustifiable decision to permit a Russian contingent to participate in the Independence Day parade on Sept. 16.

The president claims that critics have made “a lot of fuss” over the Russian presence in the parade. But let’s take a step back.

There is no doubt that the parade was an endorsement of authoritarian regimes with the contingents – Nicaraguan, Cuban, Venezuelan – that marched in it. But the Russian issue is a separate one: it is a provocation, international bravado directed against our main trading partner and neighbor, and against the European Union and the nations that have supported Ukraine in confronting and repelling the Russian aggression. 

Since the last time Russia participated in a National Independence military parade during the bicentennial of our independence in 2010, Moscow has twice – in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea, and now in 2022 with the attack on the rest of Ukraine – violated international law and the U.N. charter, invading without justification and in a premeditated manner an independent and sovereign nation. And for good measure, Putin has an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.

This latest cascade of mistakes is like a torpedo below the waterline of Mexico’s reputation and credibility in the main diplomatic capitals of the world. 

What these 10 fateful days of Mexican diplomacy – or the lack thereof  – have shown is a president and an administration without a moral compass and a geopolitical north star. Above all, this reveals that this particular “style” of stale, clumsy presidential diplomacy does take its toll on our country. 

Biden will ensure that the relationship with Mexico is not derailed at a time when migratory flows to the U.S. are once again increasing in a vertiginous – and electorally dangerous – manner. But in a US presidential campaign where the GOP and GOP presidential contenders are resorting to Mexico-bashing as if the country were a piñata, perceptions can become reality.

With Lopez Obrador’s evisceration of security, intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation with the U.S., his narrative that fentanyl is not produced in Mexico and that it is “not Mexico’s problem”, and now – in the immediate aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas against Israelis – his refusal to condemn Hamas and call it what it is, a terrorist organization, the president is stirring up hurricanes in the relationship with the U.S., with members of Congress of both parties, and with public opinion in general.

If we take into account that in a summer survey of U.S. voters who identify themselves as Republicans, 46% (compared to 18% in 2021) say Mexico is “perceived” as an “enemy” of the U.S., and that in a new poll out last week, a strong majority of people in the United States believe that the U.S. and Mexico have equal responsibility for stopping illegal immigration and drug trafficking, yet only 16% see Mexico as a “close ally”, I can’t tell you what images of Russian soldiers in the Zócalo will do to our major trading partner’s perceptions of Mexico, in the run-up to a presidential election.

This article was originally published in El Universal newspaper.

Arturo Sarukhan has had a distinguished education and career, serving as Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. (2007-2013), and in additional advisory roles in both Mexico and the U.S. Currently based in Washington, D.C., he writes about international issues for various media outlets and is a regular opinion columnist published on Mexico News Daily.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mexico News Daily, its owner or its employees.

The post Opinion: 10 days that shook Mexican foreign policy appeared first on Mexico News Daily

But at no point had it been put to the test so severely — and failed so dramatically — as in Culiacán (the capital of the state of Sinaloa) this past October, following an operation to arrest Ovidio Guzmán, son of jailed kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and the subsequent decision to release him in response to the violence unleashed by the Sinaloa criminal organization.

The havoc wreaked there was the culmination of a week defined by deadly violence in the states of Michoacán and Guerrero and the lack of a clear plan by the almost one-year-old administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to confront it.

Moreover, the deployment of just 30 troops, with no secure perimeter and no air support, suggests the operation in Culiacán was poorly planned. It’s as if Mexican forces brought knives to a gunfight. Contrary to what President López Obrador seemed to suggest in justifying his decision to pull back, lives are not saved by spur-of-the-moment decisions during an operation; they are saved by careful and meticulous planning.

The decision to cave in and release Guzmán could have far-reaching consequences for Mexico’s long struggle against violent crime, and for relations with a U.S. president who’s itching to pick a fight with Mexico on drug policy — and who will continue to use my country as an electoral piñata — on the road to 2020.

That this coincides with the lack of coherent and forward-looking Mexican and U.S. government strategies to tackle violence in Mexico and confront transnational criminal organizations operating on both sides of our border makes it all the more problematic.

And just a few days later, when the dust hadn’t even started to settle in Culiacán, the severity of the problem was manifest in an even more painful way: with the horrific tragedy of the murder of the LeBarón family, dual Mexico-U.S. citizens, killed as they traveled along a dirt road between the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, across the border from Arizona and New Mexico.

The LeBarón family also represents the myriad and profound cross-border ties and connections that characterize the complexity and richness of the U.S.-Mexico relationship, making the incident all the more distressing.

And now what happens?

How all this translates into policymaking in Mexico in the coming weeks and months, though, is still to be seen. A survey released by newspaper El Financiero on October 22 and conducted in the immediate wake of the Culiacán operation shows that 67% of Mexicans still approved of the job López Obrador is doing as president, a rate essentially unchanged over the last six months.

But by mid-November, another survey — by the newspaper El Universal — showed that the president’s approval rating fell 10 points from August to November, from 68.7% to 58.7%.

But beyond mere approval ratings, a deeper problem for his administration is starting to emerge. Polling conducted by the newspaper Reforma in the aftermath of Culiacán but before the heinous LeBarón murders was already showing that 56% of those surveyed think that the government’s security policy is failing, and half of those surveyed believe the government should not negotiate with drug traffickers.

Like in the aforementioned survey, a majority of Mexicans still believe in and trust López Obrador personally, but they increasingly do not believe in the government’s public security strategy.

Beyond the failings of Mexican law enforcement — as well as the frightening possibility that Culiacán could well signal a de facto Pax Narca in Mexico, underscoring that “ungoverned spaces” aren’t ungoverned, they just aren’t governed by the state — recent tragic events are also a reminder that the drug trade in North America is booming.

U.S. consumers of cocaine, meth and opioids funded a big share of all those gunmen and weapons deployed by organized crime. The Arizona border, near where the LeBarón family was attacked, is one of the key chokepoints for northbound opioids and therefore the locus of a fight to the death between rival criminal organizations vying for control of trafficking routes to the United States.

Alex LeBarón, a family member and spokesman for the community there, couldn’t have captured this better when he tweeted to President Donald Trump: “Want to help? Focus on lowering drug consumption in U.S. Want to help some more? Stop the ATF and gun law loopholes from systematically injecting high powered assault weapons to Mexico . . . Please help.”

A key factor in Mexican law enforcement being outgunned — in Culiacán and elsewhere across Mexico — are those Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles and other assault weapons that continue to make their way illegally across the U.S. border and feed the firepower of criminal organizations.

Mexico’s violence is fed in part by U.S. gun shops: between 2007 and 2018, more than 150,000 firearms seized in Mexico had been sold by U.S. gun shops and gun shows. In 2014 alone, roughly 70% of all traceable illegal weapons recovered in Mexico were traced back to licensed U.S. vendors. Approximately four out of 10 of these weapons originated in Texas.

LeBarón’s tweets hit the nail on the head. In many ways, his family is a victim of failed and flawed policies on both sides of the border: in the U.S., it’s the woeful inability to reduce consumption and the unwillingness to stem the flood of guns and bulk cash into Mexico; on the Mexican side, it’s a broken social contract, and an endemically weak rule of law and a public security strategy that is neither here nor there.

And in both capitals, it’s the persistence of a failed paradigm undergirding our common efforts to confront violent transnational organized crime: focusing, jointly, in going after kingpins, which led to the events in Culiacán with El Chapo’s son.

Heavy lifting needed on both sides

If the U.S. administration and Congress truly wish to turn off the gun-trafficking tap flooding Mexico, the status quo of legal sales — which account for the majority of the weapons that land in the hands of criminal organizations — needs to change. The solutions are indisputable: implementing universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, and a comprehensive sales registry; making gun trafficking and straw purchasing federal crimes; increasing access to international gun trafficking data; and requiring the reporting of multiple sales of long guns.

But even if Washington is unwilling to pursue any of these, improving oversight of southbound outbound traffic at border crossing points would go a long way toward limiting the international trafficking of weapons. Not least, it would also reflect Washington’s respect for and consistency in implementing joint responsibility.

That has been the key paradigm undergirding bilateral ties since 2007, and seems to be so sorely missing these days in the White House. Such U.S. efforts would signal a clear quid pro quo for Mexico’s efforts to stem northbound drugs.

And the U.S. must avoid knee-jerk and simplistic attempts to solve the problem with one-size-fits-all policies, whether it’s with ill-advised mentions of U.S. military operations and “boots on the ground” in Mexico, or the pervasive and recurrent temptation to designate transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) operating on Mexican soil as terrorist organizations (as some in Congress have suggested and as President Trump threatened).

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The toolbox needed to confront TCOs is different from the one you need to confront terrorists, no matter how violent and despicable criminals and drug traffickers become. Neither of those two approaches would solve the structural causes of an endemically weak rule of law, impunity and a torn social contract in Mexico; or the factors feeding a voracious consumption of illicit drugs in the U.S.; or the weapons and bulk cash flowing into Mexico from across the U.S.

And contrary to terrorist groups, criminal organizations do not want to destroy the state; they need it, though certainly weakened,  as a parasite needs a host, to conduct their business.

One could also make the case that if criminal organizations in Mexico are terrorists, then U.S. consumers and U.S. gun shops are accessories and accomplices to terrorists. And if the U.S. did indeed resort to designating organized crime in Mexico as terrorists, the trade and economic consequences for America’s No. 1 trading partnership would be severe. Moreover, using the U.S. military in Mexico or designating TCOs as terrorists would scupper the bilateral security cooperation that has been so painstakingly been built since the 9/11 attacks, and that plays such an important role in supporting U.S. homeland security.

On the Mexican side of the border, Mexico needs to ensure that its customs service truly morphs into a border security and domain-awareness-driven agency with enough resources, technology and manpower to inspect inbound cargo, vehicles and trucks and to stop guns from arriving illicitly. Moreover, Mexico’s new National Guard, designed to rein in organized crime, is now overstretched and overpowered, in part because so many of its members have been diverted (at Trump’s insistence) to stop Central American migrants and asylum seekers from reaching the U.S. border. This needs to stop.

The Mexican government should immediately adopt a two-pronged strategy:

• It must publicly state that given de facto, state-by-state legalization of cannabis in the U.S., it will, as a matter of principle and public policy, no longer spend resources or manpower in eradicating or interdicting cannabis on its way to the U.S. market. Rather, it should — despite President López Obrador’s statements and policy decisions (and his mantra of “hugs, not bullets”), dedicate those resources and manpower to taking on and confronting the more violent groups and the more pernicious drugs. And,
• It needs undoubtedly to jettison the so-called kingpin strategy that prioritizes arrests of the leaders of criminal organizations.

In Mexico, the government, political parties and the general public need to understand that the debate raging over violence and human security is not about more military or less military. It’s about a strategic and appropriate use of the armed forces as a temporary, stop-gap measure, balanced with improved institutions, civilian police, better prosecutors, a stronger judicial system, an effective prison system, greater human, social and institutional resilience, and enhanced intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation with the U.S.

Like its immediate predecessor (the Peña Nieto administration), the current Mexican government wants to keep U.S. security support at arm’s length. The results, in terms of rising levels of insecurity and violent homicides over the last six years, are there for all to see. Policymakers in Mexico need to understand that the Mérida Initiative — launched by both governments in 2007 to enhance bilateral law enforcement cooperation and then revamped and holistically broadened in 2009 — is more than just the transfer of hardware or capacity building for law enforcement, public security and the rule of law in Mexico.

Rather, it’s about process and protocols: of dialogue, communication, intelligence exchange and interagency coordination. Standard operating procedures on both sides of the border are and should be the cornerstones of effective, symmetrical, and bilateral collaboration and shared responsibility.

Mutual recriminations will do us no favor; in this bilateral relationship, if you point one finger across the border, three fingers will be pointing back at you. The choice is simple but stark: the United States and Mexico need to stop being accomplices to failure and instead become partners to success.

The writer served as a career diplomat in the Mexican foreign service for 22 years, and was ambassador to the United States from 2007 until 2013, appointed by former president Felipe Calderón. This piece was originally published by Brookings.

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