Mexico and the United States: Managing the Relationship, and: The Challenge of Interdependence: Mexico and the United States (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 279 interesting questions, yet fails to treat important societal relationships in communist systems in a truly comprehensive and comparative manner. Mexico and the UnitedStates: ManagingtheRelationship. Edited by Riordan Roett. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Special Studies on Latin America and the Caribbean, 1988. 266 pp. $19.95/paper. The Challenge of Interdependence: Mexico and the United States. Report of the Bilateral Commission on the Future of United States-Mexican Relations. New York: University Press of America, 1989. 238 pp. $12.95/paper. Reviewed by Brian Thomas Pallasch, M.A. candidate, The American University. No country in the Western Hemisphere affects the everyday lives of Americans more than Mexico. Mexico is the most important foreign supplier of oil to the United States and is its fourth largest trading partner. The United States is Mexico's largest trading partner. In addition, Mexico has become the largest supplier of illicit heroin and marijuana to the United States. A two thousand mile unguarded border allows for millions of Mexicans a year to come to the United States in search ofjobs and a higher standard of living. A sizeable proportion of Mexico's external commercial debt is held by U.S. banks. These issues are covered in Mexico and the United States: Managing the Relationship and The Challenge ofInterdependence: Mexico and the United States, and at times both offer viable and interesting alternatives to current policy. The goal of both books is to further the dialogue on U.S.-Mexican relations and have an impact on policy at the time of transition from the Reagan administration to the Bush administration. The Commission's book does a much better job of presenting new policy choices, but Riordan Roett's book does better at presenting both sides of the issue. Each book examines the key issues affecting the bilateral relationship: economics (including both trade and debt), migration, drugs, and foreign policy. There is also a section in each on the perceptions and beliefs of each country toward the other. Both books successfully show the importance of relations between the two nations and why there should be increased attention placed on improving relations. Roett brings together fourteen prominent scholars from both Mexico and the United States to examine the issues facing the two nations in their bilateral relations. This volume is the culmination of a two-year research project on U.S.Mexican interdependence conducted at TheJohns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In the opening chapter, Roett sets the tone by stating: "To achieve any significant level of management of the bilateral agenda in the 1990s, both countries will need to spend a good deal more time understanding the political and institutional framework within which each must operate." Roett states that in order for policy goals to be met there will need to be a change in mentality in the United States. "That change needs to recognize that Mexico is our 280 SAIS REVIEW neighbor, not only geographically but in terms of security, trade, and investment." One positive aspect of the Roett book is that each of the issues is examined by both a Mexican and a North American in successive chapters. This enables the reader to see how the issues are viewed from both sides of the border and what, if any, common ground exists. A large portion of the book is dedicated to the economic issues between the nations with emphasis on foreign investment and the debt. Norman A. Bailey, in his chapter on foreign investment, calls for increased use of debt-equity and debt-commodity swaps to increase investments, as well as looking to the Far East, where excess capital exists for investment. Jose I. Casar argues in his chapter "Mexican Policy on Foreign Investment," that foreign direct investment would not increase dramatically if there were an abolition of controls on foreign investment. Neither of the chapters on debt offer any new and interesting solutions to that continuing problem. León Bendesky and Victor M. Godfnez in their chapters call for the "need to promote economic growth and reduce the costs associated with external indebtedness" and the "need to pursue cooperation between the two countries." Yet they never expand on these ideas or give...