Mexico/USA politics: Clash over Cuba
FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
A US-owned Sheraton hotel in Mexico City has become the latest battleground over Washington’s longstanding commercial embargo of Cuba. The dispute has also sharpened bilateral tensions between Mexico and the US, which have been growing over immigration, border violence and other sensitive issues. With Mexico in full campaign mode ahead of the July presidential election, the hotel incident, and US-Mexican relations in general, could become political ammunition for some of the candidates. Border issues are also likely to get more entangled in electoral politics in the US.
On February 3rd the US Treasury Department ordered the Hotel María Isabel Sheraton, a popular business hotel owned by the US-based Starwood Hotels and Resorts group, to expel a delegation of 16 Cubans who were attending a conference on prospects for foreign investment in Cuba’s oil industry. The other attendees were mostly US companies, including Valero Energy, Exxon Oil and the Caterpillar Corp, along with representatives from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Corpus Christi Port Authority.
The Treasury officials cited the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits US companies or their subsidiaries in third countries from doing business with Cuba or providing services to Cubans anywhere in the world. The US has maintained an embargo on trade and business with, and most travel to, Cuba since the early 1960s. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control enforces that embargo, and the Helms-Burton Act extended the related penalties to US companies operating on foreign soil.
The expulsion order was viewed by many Mexicans as undue interference into the country’s domestic affairs. The Mexican government does not recognise the Helms-Burton Act, which it sees as an illegitimate attempt to extend US law to its territory. It does, however, have laws that prohibit discriminatory acts by a business entity, and on that basis the administration of President Vicente Fox says it will prosecute the Sheraton hotel for ejecting the Cubans. On February 9th local Mexico City officials also threatened to close the hotel, citing several municipal code violations. The hotel has sought a court injunction to delay the closure.
Distant neighbours
The dispute highlights the controversial recent efforts by the George Bush administration to tighten the screws on Cuba and more aggressively enforce both the initial trade embargo laws and the subsequent Helms-Burton Act. Under any circumstances, Mexico would oppose that act, as it has opposed the US’s blockade of Cuba itself.
Perhaps more worrisome, the row also underscores the emergence of new tensions in US-Mexican relations in other areas. There have been high-level disagreements over immigration policy, particularly the legislative bill (supported by the Bush administration) passed by the lower house of Congress late last year that calls for stricter border controls—including construction of a wall in the border area—and is viewed to be anti-immigrant. This has been compounded by several recent cases in which undocumented migrants have been killed by police or border patrol agents on the US side of the frontier.
Furthermore, there have been statements made by US officials that Mexicans view as clearly provocative. US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza has publicly criticised the Fox’s administration’s apparent inability to control drug-trafficking and related violence in the border regions. John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence (and a former ambassador to Mexico) recently labeled Mexico as a “weak state”, linking it with Haiti and Jamaica as examples of countries that could not stand up to organised crime. He has expressed particular concern with Mexico’s July presidential election, in which the frontrunner is a leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Other disputes surround Mexican support for an international war crimes tribunal, which the US opposes, and the application of the death penalty against Mexicans in the US.
In this climate, the case of the María Isabel Sheraton has outraged many Mexicans, who believe the US does not respect their sovereignty. They are calling for a response at the highest diplomatic levels. US businesses operating in Mexico, meanwhile, are caught in the dilemma of whether to comply with the laws of their home country or their host.
Campaign fodder
This incident could also serve as fodder in the presidential campaigns of Mr López Obrador of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), and of Roberto Madrazo of the centre-left Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), who trails third in voter intention polls. It could hurt the prospects of Felipe Calderón of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), the party of President Fox. The PAN is seen to be pro-US, and Mr Fox, at least at the outset, had a close working relationship with Mr Bush. But that relationship soured when Washington’s focus turned to its war on terrorism, and the promise to reform US immigration laws and create a guest-workers programme—a chief component of Mr Fox’s presidential agenda—fell by the wayside.
The US gained little by pressuring the Sheraton hotel, and has much to lose. Its diplomacy is seen by many as heavy handed and arrogant. The country’s image, already battered throughout much of Latin America, will be further damaged. Among Latin Americans, Bush is the least popular US president ever. Washington has struggled to advance its major hemispheric initiative, the stalled Free-Trade Agreement of the Americas, and few regional countries have backed its war in Iraq. Relations with several countries, particularly those with left-leaning leaders, have deteriorated.
The latest brouhaha has by no means seriously disrupted the US’s bilateral relationship with Mexico, which remains one of its closest regional allies. But with its close friends shrinking in number, it might consider treating those it has with greater care.
At the same time, however, concerns about gang-related crime, drugs trafficking and poor border controls are legitimate, and will come up in the US’s own November legislative elections, when some contenders may adopt get-tough policies. Diplomatic friction over these issues will likely continue, therefore, particularly in the absence of any clear-cut solutions.
A US-owned Sheraton hotel in Mexico City has become the latest battleground over Washington’s longstanding commercial embargo of Cuba. The dispute has also sharpened bilateral tensions between Mexico and the US, which have been growing over immigration, border violence and other sensitive issues. With Mexico in full campaign mode ahead of the July presidential election, the hotel incident, and US-Mexican relations in general, could become political ammunition for some of the candidates. Border issues are also likely to get more entangled in electoral politics in the US.
On February 3rd the US Treasury Department ordered the Hotel María Isabel Sheraton, a popular business hotel owned by the US-based Starwood Hotels and Resorts group, to expel a delegation of 16 Cubans who were attending a conference on prospects for foreign investment in Cuba’s oil industry. The other attendees were mostly US companies, including Valero Energy, Exxon Oil and the Caterpillar Corp, along with representatives from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Corpus Christi Port Authority.
The Treasury officials cited the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits US companies or their subsidiaries in third countries from doing business with Cuba or providing services to Cubans anywhere in the world. The US has maintained an embargo on trade and business with, and most travel to, Cuba since the early 1960s. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control enforces that embargo, and the Helms-Burton Act extended the related penalties to US companies operating on foreign soil.
The expulsion order was viewed by many Mexicans as undue interference into the country’s domestic affairs. The Mexican government does not recognise the Helms-Burton Act, which it sees as an illegitimate attempt to extend US law to its territory. It does, however, have laws that prohibit discriminatory acts by a business entity, and on that basis the administration of President Vicente Fox says it will prosecute the Sheraton hotel for ejecting the Cubans. On February 9th local Mexico City officials also threatened to close the hotel, citing several municipal code violations. The hotel has sought a court injunction to delay the closure.
Distant neighbours
The dispute highlights the controversial recent efforts by the George Bush administration to tighten the screws on Cuba and more aggressively enforce both the initial trade embargo laws and the subsequent Helms-Burton Act. Under any circumstances, Mexico would oppose that act, as it has opposed the US’s blockade of Cuba itself.
Perhaps more worrisome, the row also underscores the emergence of new tensions in US-Mexican relations in other areas. There have been high-level disagreements over immigration policy, particularly the legislative bill (supported by the Bush administration) passed by the lower house of Congress late last year that calls for stricter border controls—including construction of a wall in the border area—and is viewed to be anti-immigrant. This has been compounded by several recent cases in which undocumented migrants have been killed by police or border patrol agents on the US side of the frontier.
Furthermore, there have been statements made by US officials that Mexicans view as clearly provocative. US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza has publicly criticised the Fox’s administration’s apparent inability to control drug-trafficking and related violence in the border regions. John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence (and a former ambassador to Mexico) recently labeled Mexico as a “weak state”, linking it with Haiti and Jamaica as examples of countries that could not stand up to organised crime. He has expressed particular concern with Mexico’s July presidential election, in which the frontrunner is a leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Other disputes surround Mexican support for an international war crimes tribunal, which the US opposes, and the application of the death penalty against Mexicans in the US.
In this climate, the case of the María Isabel Sheraton has outraged many Mexicans, who believe the US does not respect their sovereignty. They are calling for a response at the highest diplomatic levels. US businesses operating in Mexico, meanwhile, are caught in the dilemma of whether to comply with the laws of their home country or their host.
Campaign fodder
This incident could also serve as fodder in the presidential campaigns of Mr López Obrador of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), and of Roberto Madrazo of the centre-left Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), who trails third in voter intention polls. It could hurt the prospects of Felipe Calderón of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), the party of President Fox. The PAN is seen to be pro-US, and Mr Fox, at least at the outset, had a close working relationship with Mr Bush. But that relationship soured when Washington’s focus turned to its war on terrorism, and the promise to reform US immigration laws and create a guest-workers programme—a chief component of Mr Fox’s presidential agenda—fell by the wayside.
The US gained little by pressuring the Sheraton hotel, and has much to lose. Its diplomacy is seen by many as heavy handed and arrogant. The country’s image, already battered throughout much of Latin America, will be further damaged. Among Latin Americans, Bush is the least popular US president ever. Washington has struggled to advance its major hemispheric initiative, the stalled Free-Trade Agreement of the Americas, and few regional countries have backed its war in Iraq. Relations with several countries, particularly those with left-leaning leaders, have deteriorated.
The latest brouhaha has by no means seriously disrupted the US’s bilateral relationship with Mexico, which remains one of its closest regional allies. But with its close friends shrinking in number, it might consider treating those it has with greater care.
At the same time, however, concerns about gang-related crime, drugs trafficking and poor border controls are legitimate, and will come up in the US’s own November legislative elections, when some contenders may adopt get-tough policies. Diplomatic friction over these issues will likely continue, therefore, particularly in the absence of any clear-cut solutions.
posted by Marko at 2/14/2006 07:39:00 AM
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