MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Mexico interested in joining “the successful Unasur club”
Mexico is interested in joining Unasur, Union of South American Nations, according to the country’s Deputy Foreign Affairs minister Ruben Beltrán. “When a club is successful one wants to join in”, said Beltran during a visit to Quito where he met Unasur officials. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesI believe every nation in America up to Mexico will be part of Unasur and will become the strongest union in the world. We have all that we need in terms of natural resources and technological knowhow.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 07:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0I for one support Mexico's intention.
Isn't it a bit suspicous? Calderón isn't known as a Latin-Americanist, but as a Pan-Americanist. It's very possible that Mexico's bid has been encouraged by a certain foreign country as a way to weaken, and ultimately derail, regional integration. Something similar occurred in Europe. The US pressured the original EU countries to expand membership to Eastern European countries, both as a way to halt Russian influence in that region, and to dilute integration efforts by Germany and France. Wikileaks published some months ago that Calderón's Mexico wanted to find ways to isolate Venezuela. A hypothetical Mexican membership - at least as far as it is under a PAN administration - could be divise and detrimental to regional integration in South America.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 08:13 am - Link - Report abuse 0I didn't know that. Perhaps my good will towards Mexico was misguided.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 08:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0I hope their motivations are not those of a hidden agenda, if this is the case they have no chance.
The Mexican people is very nationalist, and has a very strong identification with Latin America. But the same can't be said of their government. Often, even in democracies, a people's character is not reflected in their government's agenda. This is the case of Mexico, I guess.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 08:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0I agree, as far as their identification with Latin America, I've had close relationships with people from Mexico and I can attest to that. I don't know anything about their government though, I can only image how influential the US must be in such close proximity. Suggesting this proximity is a liability makes sense, I would worry about Colombia even more than Mexico though.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 09:14 am - Link - Report abuse 0“Despite the fact that countries like Paraguay and Chile claim to respect Colombia's right to make its own decisions, not one of the South American presidents -- speaking at the UNASUR summit in Argentina -- supports Colombia's decision to allow the U.S. access to its military bases.”
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/5639-colombia-stands-isolated-at-unasur-meeting.html
Old news, but makes my point.
The Mexican people are very nationalist, because of their hatred towards the US. It really bothers those people, but let's be clear, Mexico is a dump / failed state. You worry about Colombia? They are much closer to South Americans than you think. Stay away from Mexicans, that's my advice.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 12:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's a tough one Fido, but under no circumstances will I make a generalized derogatory remark about the Mexican people, like I said I've met many Mexicans who were very proud about their Latin American culture, and I respect that.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 12:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Some Mexicans who live in the US however have totally lost their integrity and sense of direction, those people I have no respect for, only pity. They don't belong to anything.
#6.....I have same idea !
Apr 01st, 2011 - 02:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Mexico has no any global strategic value ...
Mexico has a very problematic , carious Economy ...
Mexico wants to enter the BRIC and now UNASUR. Missing Mercosur and complete the table. Now it has agreed to Latin America?
Apr 01st, 2011 - 03:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It seems that the U.S. did not give much attention.
Remember a few years ago Mexico's president Fox, good friend of Bush...
Apr 01st, 2011 - 04:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0”This was most recently displayed at the Mar de Plata Summit of the Americas in November when the Mexican president tried to force endorsement of George Bush's beloved Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA in its Spanish acronym), which would extend the dubious benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement all the way to Tierra del Fuego. With Fox on the floor, “we don’t have to do much work ourselves” U.S. undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Scanlon told the Argentinean daily Clarin.”
http://www.marxsite.com/Vicente%20Fox.htm
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 10:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And Unasur's chain is a mass of weak links.
Arguably the strongest link, in peoples minds, has been Mercosur.
Except that the Uraguayan pronouncement today show Mercosur to be a mirage of self-delusion rather than an evolved trading partnership.
Seriously, Mexico is North America, not South America. In fact a very large part of the USA was once Mexico.
Mexico is part of a northern economic bloc.
It's an interesting thought - what if ALL nations were part of ALL blocs?
Would it produce a total integration of all trade, or
would it totally break down the advantages that flow from trading blocs?
I think that any move to change Mexico from de facto North to honorary South would have to be preceded by correcting the reality of FAILED STATE and DRUG BARON OWNERSHIP.
My advice to Unasur is:
'Get your own house in order' and
'Don't touch Mexico with a barge-pole'.
'Reject out of hand Lucas of Ecuador's sponsorship'.
You forgat one Geo: Kick Britain out of South America.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 11:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Marcos #12,
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 12:16 am - Link - Report abuse 0I understand tomorrow is 2 April and that Argentinians need to rack up the invective, but PLEASE!
War is such a nasty, bloody thing, and surely you have seen enough of it - assuming you're old enough - to know it really, really hurts .
Geoff,
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 03:37 am - Link - Report abuse 0Are you still trying to promote your 'April 2 exploitation' propaganda?
Didn't I explain this to you already? How thick headed are you?
Give it a rest man..
13 Geo, who is calling for war? No war needed, Britain is going broke.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 04:21 am - Link - Report abuse 0“Forces serving in Libya to be told: you face the sack”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8422839/Forces-serving-in-Libya-to-be-told-you-face-the-sack.html
Great comment on that article, Robin Hood save us!
“Some day, a real Englishman of guts, gonads, intelligence and integrity will emerge from Sherwood Forest - or Wherever - to save Britain. Until then, pray! Pray very hard!”
Lordlondon
You can really take it seriously when a second level diplomat like Beltran says that Mexico wants to be a part of Unasur. It is not the president, or even the foreign minister or the secretary or economy or any other high ranking official of the administration. It's just a low level diplomat. Nobody really talks about it in Mexico.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 06:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0However I do think Unasur and Mercosur will gain much if Mexico were to join those organizations, Mexico is the second largest economy in the region, it is highly industrialized and competitive. We don't buy the notion that we are the only country in the region suffering from violence, there's as much violence in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela as there is in Mexico and the country is fighting its causes too. Mexico is already part of NAFTA and has signed trade agreements with the EU, Japan and many other countries, including Chile and other in Latin America.
But for many Mexicans the most important issue is democracy, human rights, freedom and economic and technological progress and when we look south, sometimes all we see is dictators and populists like Chavez, Evo, Ortega, Correa and other ridiculous clowns. We see a lot of problems with narcotraffic in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Central America, etc., we see a lot of poverty in huge favelas in Brazil and high levels of discrimination across the region against native and afro-americans, we see plenty of social, economic and cultural problems in the region. We see a mirror of ourselves.
Why so cocky about Unasur? what can this entity do for democracy in the region? or Mercosur, isn't it plagued with regional protectionism among its own partners.
I don't see cockiness anywhere. It's just hard to see why Mexico would want to join a South American integration group since it hasn't demonstrate before that it is interested in Latin American integration. Mexico's PAN administration has in the past lobbied for the FTAA - something that would have put to an end to any effort at South or Latin American integration - and has secretly sought to isolate certain countries, e.g. Venezuela, from the broader region. This would be something like Russia trying to isolate the United Kingdom from Europe and then stating an intention to join the European Union.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 10:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0Plus, there's the fact that Unasur was founded with the clear intention of counterbalancing US influence in the region. How would Mexico fit in a club such as this one? US business community is influential in Mexico - after all, Mexico's “competitive” industry is little but maquiladoras, that is, assembly lines of US and Canadian multinationals. And US private businesses are themselves subject to US government pressure. In its still short history, Unasur already has two big victories on its side, both of which point to a greater ability of South American countries to solve internal disputes without having to resort to a foreign mediator: in 2008 Unasur halted secessionist pressure from right-wingers in eastern Bolivia and in 2010 it mediated the Colombia-Venezuela brawl, something that has brought these countries closer than they've been in years. In both cases the US took, or tried to take, measures that would have aggravated, not solved, the issues at hand. How would Mexico - a Latin American country that seems to be entirely overshadowed by US influence - have behaved had it a say on South American events, is something no one knows.
Good postings
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 10:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0@ #16 Jose, and
@ #17 Forgetit.
My advice at #11 to Unasur remains:
'Get your own house in order' and
'Don't touch Mexico with a barge-pole'.
'Reject out of hand Lucas of Ecuador's sponsorship'.
And don't forget Geo 18 kick Britain out of South America.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 03:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 016 “Jose Angel ”and when we look south, sometimes all we see is dictators and populists like Chavez, Evo, Ortega, Correa and other ridiculous clowns“
And what about Salinas de Gortari , Vicente Fox and many other present corrupt leaders of nowadays Mexico?
”there's as much violence in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela as there is in Mexico”
Really?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8208029/30000-dead-in-Mexico-drug-war.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8208029/30000-dead-in-Mexico-drug-war.html
there's as much violence in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela as there is in Mexico”
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 06:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Of all the names that mexican boy mentioned, he forgot to type (or actually tries hard to spin it's story), Mexico is the greatest Narco State in the Americas. It surpassed Colombia. Stay away from that failed state, that is my advice.
19 Marcos Alejandro (#)
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 08:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“And don't forget . . .kick Britain out of South America.”
You keep repeating this, Marcos, as if by saying it it will make it happen.
Kicking one country out of an area invariably involves warfare, so what are we to take from your repeated comment, other than you are advocating getting into a fighting match.
A really, really, bad move if your proposal was taken up by your countrymen.
Luckily neither they nor we take much notice of you.
Forgetit87 ,
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 09:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Mexico just kicked the US ambassador out a few days ago, and Obama, Hillary Clinton and all high ranking US officials and congressmen come to Mexico not every six years, not even every year, but every two or three months, it goes to show that Mexico is no puppet of anyone. Ours has been a long tradition of independence and we have fought wars against the americans, the french and others as well. Our relationship with the US is a neighbor and partner relationship, it is asymmetric by nature, because almost all US relations are asymmetric, expect the US-China relation. But the US has little interference or influence in Mexico's decisions, Mexico was never part of the cuban embargo, has often voted different in many UN initiatives and it has its own foreign agenda.
You can be as simplistic as you want to about Mexico's industry, but FEMSA, America Movil, CEMEX and many other mexican companies have taken over Brazil companies, many Mexican firms have operations in Brazil, I happen to work at one of them, we have factories in several cities on Brazil manufacturing different products. In Argentina, Colombia, Chile, all over the region you can find Mexican firms setting up operations there, Mexico has a diverse industry already very present all over the region, I suppose there are some brazilian companies also present in Mexico, no doubt. But you cannot tell us here that Brazil's industry is all national, there are countless US, Japanese and European firms also established in Brazil. And Brazil remains a cheap labor country, actually way cheaper than Mexico, and any economic index will show you that our salaries are some of the highest in the region, compared to Chile's only.
But there's really nothing to be proud of when our countries are so plagued with poverty and violence, corruption and impunity. Is Brazil or Chile or Argentina or any other nation in the region a first world country? None of them are. What's the point in trying to take it on Mexico?
That the US ambassador to MEX has resigned, I already know. But what made him to? Did the MEX government kick him out? Isn't it possible, instead, that the US government called him back in recognition that it'd have been harder to work with MEX had he not been replaced? And does that indicate MEX has an independent *foreign* policy? That Calderón manifested anger at the US ambassador is very reasonable considering the ambassador's criticism on how the PAN govt has handled an issue so of vital an importance to Mexico. But can it take an equally independent stance when it comes to issues it has nothing at stake? I don't see it. In the Honduras 2009 coup, MEX had initially sided with ARG, BR and VEN in not recognizing the “post-coup” elections outcome. It didn't take much for it to change sides, however - and this, regardless of the fact that the elections legitimacy has been questioned (many in the country's poorer villages were precluded from going to vote by some military elements) and that in the Porfírio Lobo administration HOND has seen a surge in politically motivated violence on the part of right-wing militias, which have also targeted foreign journalists. MEX's stance, however, is that the current HOND administration deserves recognition but that Chávez is a clown and that VEN - a country that hasn't experienced any of the issues observed above - needs to be curbed. By themselves, those facts indicate that Mexico would exercise at best an ambiguous influence in SA integration. That's why one should question the viability of a Mexican Unasur membership, at least as long as it is ruled by the PAN. For me, the ideal would be for all LA countries to belong to a single political union. But ideological and political issues will be a hurdle to this aspiration.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 11:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0My observations re Mexican industries weren't intended to provoke a nationalist reaction, but they're factual. Foreign ownership in national wealth have increased all over the developing world during the 90s: in BR, China, MEX - but MEX stands out in this respect. NAFTA is a sui generis agreement, and it was it that enabled foreign capital to take over MEX industries. Some months ago a BR economic research institute, the IPEA, promoted a seminar on how to prevent BR industries to “Mexicanize” - that is, to being reduced to assembly lines of foreign groups. And it's just absurd to deny that this - the large foreign participation in MEX economy - gives outsiders a degree of leverage over the MEX govt. Perhaps that's why Calderón was intent in isolating Chávez even though, IMO, MEX itself would have little to gain from this. Of course MEX has some genuinely Mexican champions which have also expanded to foreign markets. The same is true of some other Latin American businesses, specially in BR and Chile. I'm unaware of BR businesses expanding to MEX, perhaps because MEX's slow growth over the last decade has made it an unattractive destination to investment. But BR banks, aircraft- and bus- and steel-makers, food producers, etc., have expanded to South and Southeast Asia, Iberia, Africa, and, to some extent, NA. But nothing of this changes my argument. I don't want to get to a nationalist competition in here, but saying that BR is a much cheap labor region than MEX needs references. The link below informs that minimum wages in BR are 2.4 times larger than in MEX - and the average Brazilian earns three minimum wages.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 11:50 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country
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