A Marriage of Convenience Relations Between Mexico and the United States

The relationship between Mexico and the United States has never been an easy one. In this comprehensive account of recent developments in the relationship, and the way in which internal developments in each country have affected the other, Sidney Weintraub helps dispel any doubt about each country’s importance to the other–and hence the importance of relations based on mutual respect and a realistic assessment of each other’s needs.
Weintraub shows how a long catalogue of misunderstandings has exacerbated substantive problems of trade, foreign debt, industrial development, unemployment and migration, drug trafficking, and environmental despoliation. The chapters on relations at the border and on migration patterns between the two countries make particularly clear that cultural and economic integration have grown rapidly, often in spite of official policies in both countries designed to keep this from happening, and point to a future of more rather than less interdependence.
Today, as Mexico and the United States take their first tentative steps toward what would be a truly historic free-trade agreement, this book provides a solid framework for discussion of how best to negotiate the increasing–and crucial–integration.