Mexico: NOT a Failing State

Good news from Mexico....

A superb column from WSJ foreign policy maven Bret Stephens informs us that Mexico's condition has vastly improved over the past 25 years.  In what he calls "The Mexican Miracle" Stephens, who grew up in Mexico, recounts how a succession of fortuitous electoral choices--several by razor-thin margins--created a new Mexico.

Most notable in the policy realm was the North American Free Trade Accord (NAFTA), brainchild of Ronald Reagan & brought to fruition by Bill Clinton.  Mexico's economy is vastly improved.  Immigration flows have thus slowed down considerably, and democracy has flowered:

How did Mexico's democracy become inevitable? There was history. The 1990s was a good period for the reputation of democracy and free markets. Socialism had been discredited in practice and theory, and autocracy had become not just indefensible but embarrassing. In 1990, there were 61 free countries in the world, according to Freedom House. A decade later, there were 85.

There was economics. Paul Volcker's interest rates in the early 1980s ended the inflation—including the commodity inflation—of the previous decade. The Mexican government recognized it could not subsist as a petrostate. Mexico joined GATT in 1986, when oil was $30 a barrel, down from $104 in 1980.

Six years later, it signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. From the year Nafta came into force till the present, Mexico's GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity) more than doubled, to $15,000 from $7,000. Democratization becomes inevitable somewhere between the $6,000 and $9,000 mark.

Politics maven Michael Barone adds solid detail on how Mexican politics was reformed in the past twenty years.  This explains why, despite Team Obama's open refusal to enforce the immigration laws--which continues despite an 8-0 rebuke from the Supreme Court--immigration northward has significantly slowed.

Yes, the drug cartels continue their horrific killing spree.  But far from turning the country into a failed state, their vicious carnage has turned public sentiment against them.  No longer are they perceived as Robin Hoods.  Mexico's new president promises to fight them.  He says he will follow the success of Plan Colombia.  He deserves a chance.

Bottom Line.  Good news for our neighbor in the southwest is good news of America as well.

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