Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation announced the formation of a new U.S.-Mexico Policy Coalition calling on lawmakers to acknowledge a new understanding regarding the current state of Mexico, and the need for American policy to reflect that reality.

The coalition, which includes TPPF, the Heritage Foundation, Mexico’s Patria Unida, America First Policy Institute, the Center for Renewing America, and the Center for a Secure Free Society, released a letter acknowledging several propositions that form the basis of current U.S.-Mexico relations.

“The descent of the Mexican state into increasing violence, corruption, and leftist authoritarianism is a direct threat to the United States — and to Mexicans,” the coalition letter states. “Its effects are felt in our homes and our communities, and there is no end in sight. As Americans suffer, so too do Mexicans — each nation a victim of failed promises and failed policies. The cost on both sides of the border is counted in unnumbered lives lost.”

“While much of the Washington, D.C., policy community was looking the other way, Mexico emerged as one of the chief national-security challenges to the United States. Our neighbor to the south, to which we are ordinarily bound by ties of sentiment and friendship, is now ruled by a regime of leftist authoritarians in open partnership with narco cartels who kill Americans every day,” said Joshua Treviño, chief of intelligence and research for TPPF. “As Americans suffer, so too do Mexicans themselves. Both peoples require a new approach, and a new understanding. This coalition of leaders, in both Mexico and the United States, offers the necessary first step to addressing the problem: first we must understand it, and then confront it.”

The letter outlines several propositions that reflect the true state of Mexico at the moment, including:

  • Sadly, the Mexican government is not an ally to the United States, and can no longer properly be described as a partner.
  • The Mexican government and Mexican criminal cartels exist in conscious and willing symbiosis, at multiple levels, up to and including the Mexican Presidency. The current President of Mexico has expressed his openness to a pact with the cartels, and spoken of his willingness to defend them from American action.
  • The Mexican government is failing in its obligation to exercise full sovereignty over its own territory and citizenry.
  • The Mexican government is failing in its obligation to preserve its territory from use as a base of operations against its neighbors.
  • The Mexican government is failing to defend Mexican civic institutions, and is increasingly antagonistic toward a free Mexican civil society.

Click here to read the full letter and signatories.