Main Page | Month Archive | Email Updates | RSS Feed | Print Version
The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.
SMART POWER MEETS STAR POWER: HILLARY CLINTON IN MEXICO
APR 6, 2009 - 8:47AM PDT
Posted by Pamela Starr
All posts by this author
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Mexico (March 25-26) demonstrated, once again, the power of public diplomacy. The trip was a tour de force (with only one minor mishap) that opened a window of opportunity in a bilateral relationship that had become badly damaged. Prior to her trip, the mood toward the United States in Mexico was quite sour, the consequence of both Bush administration policies and recent developments. Mexico still harbors disappointment at have been shunted from the center of the U.S. foreign policy stage during the Bush administration’s first months to the margins of Washington’s concerns in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Disappointment turned to resentment with what Mexicans widely perceive to be a hostile turn in U.S. treatment of Mexican immigrants, a hostility Mexicans see as extending to Mexico itself. These perceptions have been shaped by rhetoric that sometimes turned insulting toward Mexicans and by concrete actions such as the 2006 legislation to build the border "wall" and immigration raids that have split thousands of families since mid-2007. The declining esteem for the United States further reflects Mexicans' deeply rooted fears about the main features of the Bush foreign policy and especially its unilateralism. Like many others in the United States and abroad, Mexicans have been disheartened by a series of events including the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, its seeming loss of a moral center evidenced by the violations of human rights committed at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and apparent support for a 2002 military coup against a democratically elected government in Venezuela, and its unwillingness to listen to the concerns of historic U.S. allies, especially those located in the Western Hemisphere. In a 2006 survey, only one-third of Mexicans said they admired the United States, while 38 percent expressed resentment toward their northern neighbor, and fully half said they distrusted the United States (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, México y el mundo 2006). More recently, media reports painting Mexico as a country overrun by violence and comments by former and current U.S. government officials referring to Mexico as a future “failed state” have rankled Mexicans and fed their sense of vulnerability to the whims of their powerful northern neighbor. And the decision by the U.S. Congress on the eve of the Secretary’s trip to prohibit Mexican trucks from delivering their cargo beyond the border was the final straw. A frustrated Mexican government did what it had never done before – it retaliated against this illegal U.S. action with strikingly harsh rhetoric and tariffs on a wide range of U.S. exports. Secretary Clinton started the healing process in her interviews with the U.S. and Mexican during the four hour flight from Washington DC to Mexico City, and continued it in what became a two-day routine of hitting all the right diplomatic notes. For a country that feels constantly under appreciated by the United States, she noted that the U.S.-Mexico relationship is “one of the most important relationships that exists between any…... FULL TEXT
Read Comments (4) | Add Your Own
 Read Comments:
liberti on April 7, 2009 @ 3:18 pm:
Mme. Secretary's gaffe re: Our Lady of Guadeloupe was hardly insignificant. The Virgin is a symbol of great importance to Mexico's Catholics and holds the title "Patroness of the Americas". Indeed, the Basilica is the second most visited Catholic shrine in the world. The US State Department should have prepped the Secretary on its importance but it probably fell through the cracks with the RESET button translation. Well, at least Mme Secretary received the right answer when she asked who painted the picture. A monsignor answered: God.
Charles Martel on April 12, 2009 @ 1:36 pm:
Agree that the gaffe was far from insignificant. Might have been if she hadn't later said that we have a "wonderful virgin." Catholics believe that she isn't wonderful, she is miraculous. Ice cream is wonderful. A Marian appirition is miraculous. Just shows that she is as tone-deaf as her handlers were inept in preparing her to witness the handiwork of God.
Charles Martel on April 12, 2009 @ 1:38 pm:
Sorry for teh earlier ppost. This one is more clear:
Agree that the gaffe was far from insignificant. Might have been if she hadn't later said that we have a "wonderful virgin." Catholics believe that she isn't wonderful, she is miraculous. Ice cream is wonderful. A Marian appirition is miraculous. Just shows that Hillary is as tone-deaf as her handlers were inept in preparing her to witness the handiwork of God.
abbeysen92 on August 11, 2009 @ 11:24 am:
So I called over to coursework | course work | coursework help the White House Press Office where I once worked, to ask whether it would be fair to conclude that "Public Diplomacy" is part of the Global.
coursework writing | buy coursework | custom coursework | gcse coursework
Add a Comment:
 |
SEND TO FRIENDS
