Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006, a virulent war has raged with the Mexican drug cartels, and this drug-related violence has spilled across the U.S. border, threatening U.S. lives and public safety. Geostrategic pessimists fear that the U.S. has been taking Mexico's stability for granted and warn that Mexico is teetering on the brink of a drug-induced disaster.

However, the seriousness of the drug threat to Mexico also presents a strategic opportunity. At the invitation of the Mexican government, the Bush Administration is working to establish a partnership to make Mexico safer and more secure without sac­rificing the sovereignty of either nation. The Bush Administration's Merida Initiative—a three-year, $1.5 billion anti-drug assistance package for Mexico and Central America—is a quantitative and qualita­tive jump in support for the drug fight in the region. Unlike Plan Colombia, which helped to rescue Colombia from the throes of a narco-war, the Mer­ida Initiative will provide assistance in equipment, technology, and training without a significant U.S. military footprint in Mexico. President George W. Bush signed the Merida Initiative into law as part of the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008 on June 30, 2008.

A Test of U.S.–Mexican Relations. In Mexico and in the press, the Merida Initiative is being viewed as a critical test of U.S.–Mexican relations. Its implementation will be closely scrutinized on both sides of the aisle in Congress. The Merida Ini­tiative could become an important legacy of the Bush presidency in the Western Hemisphere and should create a solid platform for U.S.–Mexican cooperation for the next Administration.

The initiative, however, is just a start. The U.S. needs to do more to secure the border, reduce the flows of illegal arms and illicit cash south into Mex­ico, and alter immigration laws to permit temporary workers to cross the border legally to help fill the U.S. demand for labor. Policymakers need to develop a comprehensive strategy that covers all transit and source countries.

Mexico needs to continue exercising the political will to combat the deadly drug cartels and continue reforming its judicial system, overhauling police and law enforcement, and modernizing and devel­oping its economy. Finally, the Mexican government needs to take an active role in preventing illegal third-country nationals from transiting Mexican territory, as well as in closing down smuggling orga­nizations that operate on Mexican soil and discour­aging Mexican citizens from entering the U.S. illegally. Both nations would benefit substantially from a return to law and order on both sides of the border.

• Building on the Merida Initiative. The Merida Initiative opens a door to multiple challenges and opportunities. It recognizes that fighting and pre­vailing in the war on drugs, first declared in the 1980s, remains central to U.S. strategy and security in the region. However, much more needs to be done. In the months and years ahead, the Adminis­tration and Congress need to:
• Implement a robust Merida Initiative. The next Congress should consider restoring the $100 million cut by this Congress and resist the temptation to raid the Merida Initiative's funding in the coming years. If results meet expectations, Congress should be prepared to provide funding above the originally proposed $1.5 billion.
• Use the Merida Initiative to leverage addi­tional cooperation agreements with Mexico. The Administration should use the Merida Initia­tive to leverage other changes in bilateral coun­terdrug cooperation, such as negotiating a comprehensive maritime agreement that allows the U.S. to intercept and board Mexican-flagged vessels on the high seas and resolving the acci­dent liability issues that forced termination of Operation Halcon, a successful helicopter-based border surveillance operation in 2006.
• Use public diplomacy and offer quick, tangi­ble assistance. The Administration should look specifically for short-term measures to bolster the morale of the Mexican law enforcement com­munity and to provide immediate help with non-lethal items, such as body armor, training, and real-time intelligence.
• Strengthen border security. The border remains a sore point in U.S.–Mexican relations. The U.S. needs to exercise better control over the north–south flows of guns and cash into Mexico without reducing resources for other programs designed to secure the border against illegal migration, illicit trade, and infiltration by for­eign terrorists.
• Make immigration reforms part of the solu­tion. Creating a new, streamlined, effective approach that allows temporary workers to enter the U.S. legally should be a high priority.
• Set appropriate benchmarks for the Merida Initiative that will encourage the Mexican gov­ernment to reform and modernize state institu­tions and exercise the political will to break the Mexican drug cartels. Mexico needs to continue increasing investments in law enforcement and judicial reform and undertake the deeper eco­nomic and structural reforms that will underpin its future viability and prosperity.
• Develop a comprehensive strategic frame­work that incorporates the Caribbean, the Mex­ican–Central American corridor, the Andean source areas, and the U.S. market into a single integrated, bipartisan counterdrug strategy.

Conclusion. Mexico is teetering on the brink of another crisis, which involves bullets rather than banking policies and exchange rates. The victims of this crisis range from honest cops and Mexican chil­dren to American youth who become hooked on cocaine or methamphetamines.

Mexico and the U.S. face the same enemy: elu­sive, sophisticated, resourceful, and violent transna­tional criminal networks that exploit U.S. and Mexican weaknesses and vulnerabilities, defy his­torical concepts of sovereignty and nationhood, supply the most dangerous and darkest human desires, and undermine the foundations of demo­cratic governance and the basic concepts of free societies. Making common cause against such an enemy makes eminently good sense.

Ray Walser, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.