EL PASO — Always complex, the relationship between the United States and Mexico has become more frustrated due to the drug war that is increasingly being waged near U.S. soil, according to experts.

“These two neighbors have had a very tumultuous relationship for a very long time. You could say that the 1800’s were spent in conflict, territorial and otherwise and then the early century was also difficult on account of US interventions in Mexico,” said Dr. Tony Payan, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso and the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies.

According to Payan, both countries now share another thing in common: mutual suspicion. “Mexico is always suspicious of U.S. actions and intervention as well as always worried about its sovereignty. The U.S. is always suspicious of the Mexican government and its commitment to democracy and human rights,” Payan said. “In addition, it is also always weary about issues such as immigration and drugs.”

Ever since the election of President Felipe Calderon in 2006, the issue of drugs has taken on more significance. Lauded initially for its hard-line stance on narcotics and organized crime, the Calderon administration has recently been criticized for its strategy in the war on drugs.

“The political situation in Mexico is under stress. There were elections a few weeks ago and President Calderon’s party, the conservative National Action Party (PAN), is widely viewed as having lost seats in their Congress,” Dr. Kathleen Staudt, professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso said. “President Calderon is spending a lot of political and economic capital in trying to fight drug trafficking and organized crime.”

In few places are the strategies to fight drugs more evident than in Juarez, where more than 6,500 soldiers have been deployed during the Calderon administration.

“They [the soldiers] are almost like the police now, but I see them more often,” Ricardo Perez, a Juarez resident said. “They are just part of my life now. I see them when I go to a party, on my way to school, or even when I go out with my girlfriend.”

Despite the massive offensive against drug trafficking, the problem has not gone away.  “The war on drugs is terrible because what drives everything is consumption in the United States,” Dr. Irasema Coronado, associate professor of political science at the UTEP said. “It’s been 40 years, and the drug war has become a big welfare system for a bunch of people on government payroll. How many DEA agents, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms people, ICE agents, customs agents, FBI agents are on the payroll of the government fighting the war on drugs? It’s keeping a lot of people employed.”

According to Coronado, the city of El Paso has been benefiting economically from the war on the drugs  “El Paso has been a recipient of very high deposits through the FDIC, there is a lot of cash in this community, a lot of money laundering that takes place here,” Coronado said. “It benefits in many ways. Lots of people lots of money.”

To many people, the drug war only separates and divides the community. “There is a division, especially at the local level because people just want to blame the other side for the violence,” said Angela Kocherga, Mexico Bureau Chief for Dallas-based KHOU TV.

Although the human cost of the drug war has been high, with Mexico’s daily El Universal, reporting that 8,463 drug executions have occurred during the first two years of President Calderon ’s administration and over 1600 drug-related murders in Juarez this year alone, the war has also had another toll.

“The war on drugs, over the last 30 to 40 years, has only negatively affected our ability to build bi-national institutions,” Payan said. “In order to create these institutions which are so vital for true collaboration, there needs to be a certain level of trust. The failure of the drug war has only weakened trust.”

Bi-national institutions, which are few and far between, according to Payan, are when two nations share the same vision and supplement that with joint goals that are permanently defined.

“Bi-national institutions are the true definition of collaboration,” Payan said. “Unfortunately, collaboration has not truly been achieved on a large scale yet.”
In the same way, a permanently defined strategy to fight the drug war in Mexico has not been reached between political parties.

“The PRI is a party that is more willing to exercise a strategy of picking and choosing what cartels to fight rather than fighting them all at the same time like the PAN,” Payan said.

Coronado contends that fighting the “narcos,” in general, is a no win situation, and a new approach needs to be enacted.   “There needs to be an agreement between the government and the narcos. You can’t fight them, you won’t win, its way too much money and too political,” Coronado said.  “The approach that should be taken with the cartels is one similar to what previous Mexican presidents have done: You do your thing; we do our thing. We move forward with our operation, and you move forward with yours.”

Until that time comes, if ever, the entire border community will continue to feel the ripple effects of the drug war. “These two communities are being split asunder,” Payan said. “Whereas other places like Europe are erasing their borders, ours is actually becoming more marked. It is certainly splitting up our community.”

Despite having a long history of amicable relations, the relationship between the neighboring countries is a complex one.

“I have seen contradictory things happen over the last 30 years,” Staudt said. “On the one hand I have seen good collaboration between people on both sides of the border around work and business, organizing interests groups and so on, but I also see tensions over the security situation, over the violence, over the drug gateway that we are living in.”

The El Paso area, considered to be a hybrid region of culture and economics, has witnessed firsthand the development of the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent think tank, Mexico is the United States’ second largest trading partner after Canada, and the United States is Mexico’s largest partner.

“I go to Mexico to buy things I wouldn’t normally be able to find here,” Mauricio Cisneros, a resident of El Paso said. “That can include food, movies, or even medicine which can be found for a significantly lower price.”

With over 250 accords ranging from prisoner exchanges to stolen car agreements, the United States and Mexico have tied the knot in numerous ways. “Geographically, economically, socially, and historically there is a bond. This used to be a part of Mexico, so there is a unity, there is a link that you cannot rupture,” Coronado said.

Despite coming under intense stress, it doesn’t seem as if this bond is in danger of being completely broken. “There are several descriptions [of the relationship between the United States and Mexico], one of my favorite ones is by Sydney Winthrop, a professor at UT Austin. He wrote a book called ‘A Marriage of Convenience where divorce is not possible,’” Coronado said. “The other one is a very famous quote by Porfirio Diaz, ‘Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.’”

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