United States Relations with Mexico: Context and Content

In his preinaugural visit with President Lopez Portillo of Mexico, President Ronald Reagan demonstrated his intention to improve and strengthen relations between Mexico and the United States. In this regard, President Reagan is not unlike President Jimmy Carter and other presidents before him. Whether President Reagan will succeed, only time will tell.

As earlier presidents have found-in spite of the best of intentions-President Reagan's task is not an easy one. And as the papers presented in this volume indicate, the social, cultural, religious, political, and economic linkages between Mexico and the United States are too numerous to count. The difficult bilateral policy issues confronting both governments reflect the complex and often amorphous nature of those linkages.

The papers assembled in this volume represent a continuing effort by the American Enterprise Institute to bring to the attention of US policymakers a range of perspectives on the more critical issues concerning US-Mexican relations. Some of the papers are written by scholars, some by present and former government officials, and some by individuals whose daily lives are directly involved in some aspect of US-Mexican relations. Some of the papers are written from a national perspective-others from a regional perspective. Some are focused on the past, others on the present. All of them, however, are informative and interesting.