Panel analyzes U.S.-Mexico relationship

The Center on Public Diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism hosted a panel Tuesday to discuss the possibilities for transformation in the relationship between the United States and Mexico based on the result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The panelists included Arturo Sarukhan, the former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. and a CPD distinguished fellow; León Krauze, a journalist, author and news anchor; and Pamela Starr, director of the U.S.-Mexico Network at USC and an associate professor of public diplomacy and international relations. The panel was moderated by Tom Hollihan, a professor of communication management at USC Annenberg, and centered on the bilateral ties between the two countries and the partisan rhetoric used by Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.

The panelists talked about how Mexico perceives the U.S. at this juncture, as well as the impacts of the campaign on the bilateral agenda. They also emphasized the public diplomacy footprint that will impact future relations between the U.S. and Mexico.

Starr listed the anomalies that have crept up in the political relationship between the two countries. She observed that while both the U.S. and Mexico have heavily relied on each other for decades, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has presented evidence that the countries don’t trust each other as much now as they did before. On the other hand, Sarukhan said that the impact of Trump’s rhetoric has been transnational, and the strategy of the U.S. should be to work alongside Mexico to promote Latino leadership in the country.

Krauze also reflected upon how to actively fight against nativism in the age of social media.

“I think there is a moral argument to be made,” Krauze said. “The Mexican government should push back and the other parties should push back, including the private companies.”

Krauze also pointed out that while twenty percent of Mexico’s current population is in the United States, the Mexican government was silent when Trump decided to target the country by calling for a wall to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border. He also questioned the stand of Claudia Ruiz Massieu, the Mexican secretary of foreign affairs, on this incident and pointed out how she went back on her statement to the Washington Post, in which she labeled Trump a racist.

The impact of Trump’s rhetoric, Sarukhan argued, may present itself in Latino voter turnout. Sarukhan pointed out that there is a difference of 5 million in the number of Latinos who register to vote and the number who actually turn out to vote.

“The difference is growing,” Sarukhan said. “We have not been able to mobilize them to vote. What I hope will happen as a result of this campaign is that there will be much higher incentives for the Latinos to come out and vote. We could see a slight increase in the number of Latino voter turnout.”

The student attendees found that it was important to have panelists with ties to Mexico because of their differing perspectives.

“It was good to have [opinions] from people who are from Mexico or are who are studying in Mexico,” said Michael Karakashian, a graduate student in public diplomacy. “There is a difference in perception, the people who were born and raised there and are following their academic pursuits here in the states, it was very valuable to know what they think about the current presidential candidates.”

“The conference went very well,” said Sergio de la Calle, a graduate student in public diplomacy from Mexico. “It is very important to bring people from Mexico who are experts on international relations, to talk about the complex historical relation between the USA and Mexico. I think the biggest problem between both countries is that they don’t understand each other; they don’t know about each other, and that’s a politician’s profit out of this misunderstanding.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the host of the panel. It is the Center on Public Diplomacy not the Center for Public Diplomacy. The Daily Trojan regrets the error.