Mexico: Issues for Congress

Clare Ribando Seelke
Specialist in Latin American Affairs

The United States and Mexico have a close and complex bilateral relationship. As neighbors and partners under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the United States and Mexico have extensive economic linkages, with bilateral trade valued at almost $400 billion in 2010. In recent years, security issues have dominated the bilateral relationship, and the United States is providing more than $1.9 billion worth of training and equipment to Mexico through the Mérida Initiative to support efforts against drug trafficking and organized crime. Roughly $896 million of that assistance had been delivered as of December 31, 2011. Immigration and border security have also returned to the forefront of the bilateral agenda since Arizona became the first state to enact a strict law against illegal immigration in April 2010.

In his sixth and final year in office, President Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has an approval rating of about 50% (February 2012). The Calderón Administration has arrested record numbers of drug kingpins, but the brazen violence committed by warring criminal groups, partially in response to the government’s aggressive anticrime efforts, has led to increasing criticism of its security strategy. According to Mexican government data, organized crime-related violence claimed more than 47,500 lives in Mexico between December 2006 and September 2011. President Calderón is still working to boost jobs, expand access to health insurance, and reform the country’s security apparatus. His government is also responding to the effects of a severe drought that began in May 2011 and is now affecting more than half of the country. However, with the end of his administration approaching, President Calderón may now be unable to shepherd much-needed structural reforms through the Mexican Congress.

Security and the economy are likely to be major issues in the July 1, 2012 presidential, legislative, and state elections. Recent polls show Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), former governor of the state of Mexico, leading Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the populist PRD candidate who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election, and Josefina Vázquez Mota, a former Education Minister and congresswoman, of the PAN. The PRI’s prospects for recapturing the presidency have strengthened since its candidates won four of the six gubernatorial elections contested in 2011. However, analysts predict that the presidential race will tighten as the elections approach. The parties will not officially register their candidates until mid-March, with the campaign beginning on March 30.

Congress has maintained an active interest in Mexico with counternarcotics, border security, and trade issues dominating the agenda. Congressional funding and oversight of the Mérida Initiative is likely to continue. The Obama Administration asked for $269.5 million in assistance for Mexico in its FY2013 budget request, including $234.0 million in Mérida assistance. Congress may also monitor how organized crime and government efforts to suppress it are affecting human rights and democracy in Mexico, particularly as the Mexican elections approach. Drug trafficking-related violence in northern Mexico is likely to keep border security on the agenda of congressional oversight committees. While comprehensive immigration reform is unlikely to advance this year, Congress may consider discrete immigration measures to facilitate the admission of nurses and other high-skilled workers. Efforts to boost bilateral trade and increase economic integration, as well as to resolve periodic trade disputes under the NAFTA, are also likely to be of interest to Congress.


Date of Report: February 15, 2012
Number of Pages: 41
Order Number: RL32724
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