Mexico Our Good Neighbor - Essay Example

Mexico Our Good Neighbor Mexico is situated in the southwestern part of mainland North America and roughly triangular in shape, Mexico stretches more than 3000 km from northwest to southeast. Its width is varied, from more than 2000 km in the north and less than 220 km at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the south.Mexico is bordered by the United States to the north, and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. Mexico is about one-fourth the size of the United States. Baja California in the west is an 1,250-km peninsula and forms the Gulf of California. In the east are the Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Campeche, which is formed by Mexico's other peninsula, the Yucatn. The center of Mexico is a great, high plateau, open to the north, with mountain chains on the east and west and with ocean-front lowlands lying outside of them. The terrain and climate vary from rocky deserts in the north to tropical rain forest in the south. Mexico's major rivers include the Ro Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande) and the Usumacinta on its northern and southern borders, respectively, together with the Grijalva, Balsas, Pnuco, and Yaqui in the interior. With an estimated 2005 population of about 106.5 million, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. On September 16, 1810, independence from Spain was declared by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest in the small town of Dolores, causing a long war that eventually led to independence in 1821 and the creation of the First Mexican Empire. After independence, Spanish possessions in Central America which also proclaimed independence were all incorporated into Mexico from 1822 to 1823, with the exception of Chiapas. Soon after achieving its independence from Spain, the Mexican government, in an effort to populate its sparsely-settled hinterlands, awarded land grants in a remote area of the northernmost state of Coahuila y Tejas to hundreds of immigrant families from the United States, on the condition that the settlers convert to Catholicism and assume Mexican citizenship. It also forbade the importation of slaves, a condition that, like the others, was largely ignored. The Empire soon fell to rebellious republican forces led by Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna. The first Republic was formed with Guadalupe Victoria as its first president, followed in office by Santa Anna. As president, in 1834 Santa Anna abrogated the federal constitution, causing insurgencies in the southern state of Yucatn and the northernmost portion of the northern state of Coahuila y Tejas. Both areas sought independence from the Mexican government. While negotiations eventually brought Yucatn to again recognize Mexican sovereignty, Santa Anna's army turned to the northern rebellion. The inhabitants of Tejas, calling themselves Texans and led mainly by relatively recently-arrived English-speaking settlers, declared independence from Mexico at Washington-on-the-Brazos, giving birth to the Republic of Texas. Texas won its independence in 1836, further reducing the territory of the fledgling republic. In the 1840s, Mexico was invaded and defeated by the United States, which demanded and received roughly one-half of the country's remaining territory, from which were formed the modern states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and most of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. The PRI governments in power for most of the 20th century had a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans fleeing political persecution in their home countries. Mexico also has a sizeable population of Asians numbering around 200,000, many of them being Chinese and Japanese. There are also a small amount of Lebanese. Mexico is the country where the greatest number of U.S citizens live outside the United States. This may be due to the growing economic and business interdependence of the two countries under NAFTA, and also that Mexico is considered an excellent choice for retirees. A clear example of the latter phenomenon is provided by San Miguel de Allende and many towns along the Baja California peninsula and around Guadalajara, Jalisco. Life expectancy in Mexico increased from 34.7 for men and 33 years for women in 1930 to 72.1 for men and 77.1 years for women in 2002. The mortality rate in 1970 was 9.7/1000 people and by 2001 the rate had dropped to 4.9/1000 for men and 3.8/1000 for women. The most common reasons for death in 2001 were heart problems (14.6% for men 17.6% for women) and Cancer (11% for men and 15.8% for women). Mexico is ethnically and culturally diverse. According to the CIA World Factbook, about 60% of the population is mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white), another 30% is Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian, and 9% is white (or of European descent). The remaining 1% includes Afro-Mexicans and others. Mexico is also home for many other Latin American groups: mostly Argentines, but also Brazilians, Cubans, Nicaraguans,Colombians and Venezuelans.An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. This boundary may take any of a number of forms -- racial, cultural, linguistic, economic, religious, political -- and may be more or less porous. Because of this boundary, members of an ethnic group are often presumed to be culturally or biologically similar, although this is not in fact necessarily the case. The Spaniards called the different indigeneous communities of Mexico pueblos or naciones (communities or nations) depending on their size and importance. In contemporary Mexico, "ethnic group" refers to the surviving indigenous territorial communities that maintain their distinct language and political, economic and social systems. The Zapatista movement, which demands legal status for ethnic groups and their right to a common future as such, can only be understood with a definition of ethnic group as a territorial and social organization. Our good neighbor has a free market economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal. Trade with the US and Canada has tripled since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Mexico has 12 free trade agreements with over 40 countries including, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the European Free Trade Area, and Japan, putting more than 90% of trade under free trade agreements. The government is cognizant of the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, and provide incentives to invest in the energy sector, but progress is slow. Due to explosive population growth, Mexico's labor force has expanded rapidly since the 1970s. By 2003 the labor force had grown to 43.6 million people. Of these workers, 66 percent were male and 34 percent were female. Official estimates of urban unemployment averaged about 3 percent in 2001, but most analysts believe that true rates of unemployment are much higher, and that underemployment in Mexico is significant. This situation has increased illegal immigration to the United States. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the structure of the Mexican workforce underwent major changes. Manufacturing and other industries-sectors of the economy that have traditionally provided stable jobs that pay good wages-saw little growth and created few new jobs. At the same time, the number of low-paying, service sector jobs increased. In 2001, services employed 56 percent of all of Mexico's labor force. Industry (including construction, manufacturing, mining, and power) employed 26 percent of the labor force. Agriculture (including forestry and fishing) employed about 18 percent. Less than one-fifth of Mexico's labor force belongs to a union, the majority of which are controlled by the government. Rather than being aggressive advocates for workers, Mexican unions have typically played a crucial role in supporting the government-dominated Institutional Revolutionary Party. In doing so, the unions have often agreed to government economic pacts to control inflation, prices, and wage increases. Mexican unions are noted for their levels of corruption and subordination to government influence. The major unions are the Mexican Federation of Labor and the National Farmers Confederation. Much of Mexico is too dry or mountainous for agriculture; only 14 percent of the nation's land is cultivated or used for plantations and orchards. Irrigation is required to farm in many regions. Most of the food consumed by Mexicans is raised on Mexican farms, although frequent droughts and a population that is growing faster than the amount of food produced have made Mexico dependent on agricultural imports, particularly grains and milk products. Agriculture accounts for only a small percentage of Mexico's GDP. Although agriculture employed one-fifth of the nation's economically active population, it only accounted for 4 percent of the value of the GDP in 2003. Agriculture has declined in importance economically (it accounted for just 4% of GDP in 2003) but remains an important source of employment (around one-fifth of the workforce is involved in agricultural activities). Moreover, Mexico's agricultural GDP is among the five largest in the OECD area, in terms both of employment and output, and Mexico is a major contributor to agricultural trade. Underpinned by the moves to liberalize trade, Mexican agricultural policy is progressively replacing price-support policies for grains, beans and oilseeds by direct payments to farmers through the programme known as 'Procampo'. The move toward a system of direct payments decoupled from the production of specific commodities will reduce distortions in production and trade, and will benefit farms who previously produced too little to take advantage of the system of market-price support. An important feature of 'Procampo' is that it is intended to be implemented over a fixed period, which will help farmers in their planning decisions. moreover, the development of property rights through a property register for the entitlement to Procampo payments will provide an incentive for farmers to farm in a more environmentally sustainable way, which could reduce the 'slash and burn' practices that were prevalent in the past in some parts of Mexico. A major new development, building on these reforms, the 'Alliance for Agriculture' (Alianza para el campo), announced at the end of 1995, defined the government's main objectives in agricultural policy for 1995-2000. It consists of a set of specific programmes aimed primarily at improving farmers' skills and stimulating technological development, with a view to increasing the productivity and competitiveness of Mexican farms. A programme called 'Produce' is the main element within the Alliance for Agriculture and accounts for about half of its total budget. The principal objectives are to improve the production base of farms and to promote the introduction of technology. Under Produce', payments are granted directly to farmers once and for all for the purchase of capital goods, and for the provision of technical support by private foundations. Implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began on January 1, 1994. This agreement will remove most barriers to trade and investment among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Under the NAFTA, all nontariff barriers to agricultural trade between the United States and our good neighbor Mexico were eliminated. In addition, many tariffs were eliminated immediately, with others being phased out over periods of 5 to 15 years. All agricultural provisions will be implemented by the year 2008. For import-sensitive industries, long transition periods and special safeguards will allow for an orderly adjustment to free trade with Mexico. Bibliography: 1. www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ 2. www.mexonline.com 3. www.visitmexico.com 4. www.mexonline.com 5. www.mexconnect.com 6. www.fas.usda.gov 7. www.nationmaster.com/country/mx/Agriculture Read More