watch alaska weekend on c-span, c-span.org and listen on the free c-span radio app. >> a look now at the evolving relationship between the united states and mexico. current and former officials have both the u.s. and mexico have discussed the recent history of the two neighboring countries and the impact of nafta over the years. among the speakser was former u.s. ambassador to mexico roberta jacobson who provided closing remarks on enhancing future relations between the two countries. this is about two hours.

>> good morning, everybody. >> good morning! >> hi. >> good to have you here. thank you for everyone who is here and thanks to everyone joining us by live stream and anyone joining us from c-span as well. thanks for being with us. it's and immense honor to welcome you to the migration policy institute. we are an organization that studies the movement of people worldwide which means that one of the things we do research, extensive research, evidence-based research and authoritative research. we bring people together for dialogue, training and learning opportunities and do a lot of pragmatic problem-solving around issues of immigration and immigrant immigration policy around the world. we work in the united states. we also have an office in brussels and europe and work a lot in europe and we've also worked around the world and we've particularly spent a lot of time working with colleagues and mexico in central america and regional migration issues as well. today's discussion fits well in things that we do at mpi but fits very well with the woodrow

wilson center and thanks for woodrow wilson center and its mexico institute for co-sponsoring today's event. duncan you'll hear from in a moment and great pleasure to work with in a moment and i was at the wilson center as well so a great partnership that carries on. this is a book that we're here to talk about vanishing frontiers, forces driving the mexico and united states together. this came out early this morning, but also to talk more broadly about the u.s.-mexico relationship and the idea today is really going beyond the book and talking about the relationship itself, and you're going to hear from really distinguished panelists in a moment, both mexicans and americans and even someone from the uk talking about this relationship and how deep it is. when i started to write this book, and depending on whether you ask my family whether i started ten years ago or two years on this, it started being an idea ten years ago when -- there were various drachts floating around, most of which

didn't survive, but it was intensely written in the past two, two and a half years. the idea was trying to tell the story about how two countries, mexico and the united states, have become so deeply integrated and so deeply interrelated in ways that we often miss, that both americans and mexicans often don't see and how this has become a truly intimate relationship. the introductory chapter is called intimate strangers, the motion we're intimately engaged with each other in ways we don't see and we're strangers and don't have the tools to understand how deeply integrated we are. i wanted to tell that story and wanted to tell it through stories as well because, you know, a lot of us have spent a lot of time trying to tell this story through data and analysis and also telling it through the human stories. so this really is a book of stories, how i describe the book often. it's a book of stories backed up by analysis and data and largely to try to let the human stories speak. and, you know, three things have gone on at least in this relationship. one is obviously economics.

we've become economically intertwined in ways we weren't 20 or 30 years ago and that's significant and phenomenal and as we'll talk about carla and antonio, we talk about nafta as a trade agreement. it's not about trade agreement, it's about manufacturing things together. it's about actually doing things, actual think having a common -- becoming a common economic platform within the global economy and that's a huge shift in the last 20 or 30 years. also clearly migration has driven this relationship in innumerable ways. one of ten americans is mexican descent. most fairly recent history, one, two, three, four generations, recent migration. one in ten mexicans, one in ten people born in mexico live in the united states. there's 12 million-born mexican people in the united states and a million americans are living in mexico right now. this is something that's passed under the radar. almost a million americans living in mexico. if you believe the mexican

census it's 750,000, but it's a large number of people. some are mexican descent and some have returned with mexican parents and some no heritage connection with mexico before they moved there. it's a diverse group and a group that's begun to reshape mexican society and build links to the united states in new ways. finally, of course, we're neighbors. that's something that's not going to change. whether we love each other or we fight with each other on any given day we're going to continue to be neighbors. it's not like what we talk about our neighbors in our neighborhood where you could get up and movement might be very costly to do it. we actually can't get up and movement barring a gigantic earthquake or asteroid that hits the earth, we're going to be neighbors for a really long time and that's a huge difference. one of the sub themes is boarder communities deal with each other in a much different way than people further out. a lot of the cooperation and changes happened in the region where people have to deal with each other and it all comes together at the border. people actually have to deal

with each other in different ways and pragmatic ways not driven by ideology. increase los angeles and phoenix and dallas are border cities and the boarder is moving n.in some ways chicago is a border city and detroit is a border city. these are things that have actually moved out because it's not just the physical bothered, but the linkages that go on, and those linkages are sometimes cultural and family and deeply economic. the stories in this book run the gamut and go from dry topics like manufacturing, though i hope to make that a little bit interesting. there's a trade and manufacturing and all that sort stuff. mexican investment in the united states, mexican investment turning around small towns in the united states, so things like film and sports and food. food is probably the place where we have the closest interaction with each other but film, right? four of the last five oscar-winning directors are mexican. something happened between the mexican and american film

industries that's unique, right, and it's a bitter story about three people who are, you know, friends and incredible film-makers, but it turns out when you dig beneath that, there's a huge connection going on between the mexican film industry and the u.s. film industry. border cooperation and security cooperation and a few chapters looking at public security and regardless what have happens at a political level between the two countries and lots of mistakes have been made at a political level and the degrees of trust on the front line and that's police officers and intelligence officers and non-governmental advocates. we're dealing with that in a new way trying to deal with with a problem that's shared between the two countries. we're at a moment where there's lots of negative rhetoric about the u.s.-mexico relationship. it's easy and a few were talking about it. is this relationship coming apart or going together? it's hard to tell in the moment? those that live in the moments of politics and those that are watching this in washington, tend to live in the moment of politics. i suspect that some of you have outside washington watching this

conversation have the benefit of a longer view on these things. we tend to get drawn into whatever the latest tweets or latest statement from a political candidate or a government leader is. in the short term things are going to be pretty rocky. we know that. there's lots of things on the table and this is a complicated relationship and let me go back and say the immigration going on. i will argue and do argue, overall very beneficial for the united states. it's in our self-interest to engage mexico in new ways, but it's not always easy and not always uncomplicated and not always without problem. there are actual real problems that happen along the way as the two countries engage with each other, so right now we're at a movement re-evaluating some of these things. people in both countries are questioning some. assumptions we've had in the past. sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly but it will be a bumpy road for a while and if you look at the long term, i'm very convinced and i think a lot of other people here on the panel today are as well. in the long term you're going to find this is ay willlationship

that will grow closer with or without the politics and the politicians will eventually come along but in the end the larger forces in society, the social forces, the economic forces, the cultural forces are going to be much stronger than t political winds that we're seeing right now. and so thank you to everyone for being here. let me introduce duncan wood, the director of the mexican institute, thanks to doug and lisa from mr. pi and the wilson center, the mexican institute and the communications team at the wilson center for all their work in making today's event a success, and here's duncan wood, the direct orthoof the mexican center at the woodrow wilson center. [ applause ] >> good morning, everybody. it's great to be here. one of the invitations to participate that you could not refuse, and i have to say, first of all, thanks to mpi, to the wilson center, to everybody who has put this together, but most of all a quick recognition of

andrew. i like to call him the godfather of mexican studies in washington. i have to use that term because he hired me. he also hired my colleague chris wilson. he even hired my wife at one point which is a strange kind of family connect which means, yes, i real am indepthed two for two incomes. >> in the spirit of being the godfather of something and the hardest work man in mexican studies, he not only writes boar, he works incredibly hard at multiple things and travels. he has babies while doing all of this. it's kind of an amazing thing that one could reproducing at the same time as being productive in so many other areas. i said when did you find time to write books? >> well, i get up at 4:00, i sort of get red and i start writing at 5:00 and then come into the office. i'm like that's dedicated.

at 5:00 i'm still firmly in the arms of morpheus, and, you know, i don't even think about writing until about 9:00 when i get to the office, but andrew's life and his career is something that is not just to be admired but something that many of us sharing, i think, and that's his passion. many of us share the fact that he has blended his life with his career. his dedication to mexican studies matches his dedication to mexico and his life that he has lived on both sides of the border, and many of us in this room share, that i would say. we feel the successes and failures of the bilateral relationship. it's not just that we analyze them or just that we write about them, opine about them, but we feel them. they feel the ups and downs and expegs lit current crisis that we're going through. i don't use the term crisis lightly. i do firmly believe that. the book itself, sometimes a colleague sends you a book, and

it's an obligation. okay, yeah, i'll read this because it's a colleague and i should be informed about this. not the case here. the book is terrific. as i did in my facebook review the other day, a cracking good read. it really is. it's one of those books that you ping and you want to keep reading, and that's not always the case with books that come out of think tankers as all of us are painfully aware in this room. it's about the human aspect of policy. what andrew has managed to do is to highlight how haul of this highfalutin stuff that we talk about in the think tank community here in washington hand in mexico city and other parts of the continent, how that actually plays down to the human level. it's about, as andrew has said, living the relationship intimately because we are intimately involved in that, and what andrew recognized was that despite all of the excellent work done by many of the people in this room on analyzing the bilateral relationship, there was a need for narrative, and we've said this many, many times

over the years, who is going to write the stories? who is going to tell the stories that will actually get through to human beings so that they begin to understand, and, therefore, there was a node for this book. this is not just a nice book that we all enjoyed reading. there was a need for this boar, i would argue, and -- and although it's probably not going to have an immediate impact on policy right now, the long game is what we're playing, and the long game means that we've got to change hearts and minds, and i think that andrew's reference obviously to the stories involving film and sports and food are critical. i would love to see the movie deal, andrew, at some point. wouldn't that be great if we could tell the stories of the bilateral relationship in that sense. analysis, of course, is vital when we come to study the bilateral relationship but andrew has managed to translate that analysis and put it into a form which is much more accessible for a lay public, so two things before i close.

first of all, is read it. it's not just something that you buy and you put on yourself. i know that books look very nice on book shelves. read this one. it's not a burden or an obligation. get through it. it's a terrific read, and the second one is that what andrew has managed to do is he's managed to really scratch the surface, haven't you, of the stories that mexico and the united states and mexicans and americans and all of us other crazy people, europeans, brits, whatever we are, not quite sure anymore, that live in this space. there are so many other stories that is are out there, and the stories will continue to come in the future, so in many ways i would say the book stands as an opportunity and really a motivation for the rest of us to tell more stories. those stories are going to be a different kind of story i think for the next couple of years. we're going to see stories which are less positive, but we have to remember the stories-ins this book and keep looking for those

positive stories. thanks for having me here. congratulations. to somebody i do consider to be my brother, thank you very much for -- for including us in this project. let me now introduce ambassador jose antonio who is a very, very distinguished mexican diplomat. grateful that you've come here today. i know it's a very busy time at the mexican embassy. he's been ambassador in bolivia and has extensive experience, director general, director of relations between mexico, united states and canada and, of course, right now he's dcm at the mexican embassy here in washington. grateful for your presence here, and please, the microphone, is yours.

>> this is magnetic. >> may not be able to take it off. >> well, good morning to everybody. it's a privilege to speak to so many young people an before such a distinguished audience and speaking before really people that have engaged in the u.s.-mexico relationship like the ambassador and mr. jacobson and my colleague, duncan wood and, andrew, the ambassador has asked me to convey his congratulations for this magnificent book. andrew, your book is sass always

thoroughly well documented and well argued material. it enriches the knowledge and the understanding of the complex and often misunderstood with bilateral relations between mexico and the united states. your book is a timely reminder that further than geographicic advice inter, our countries are bound by their peoples and daily interactions and exchanges. it's also important to recognize as the ties between americans and mexicans grow stronger by daily interactions, both countries grow stronger and closer together and more interdependant. mexico and the united states share a very long land border. but also a very deep border region where academics, commercial, social, cultural, gastromonic, religious, linguistic and family ties have been established for more than 150 years. two characteristics have defined these exchanges.

first, their strength and intensity reached their highest magnitude at the border and at the local level and gradually decreased without disappearing as we move away from the border. but also we can perhaps agree with andrew that this is changing. as he describes in the book there's intense interactions of mexicans and the u.s. and americans in mexico all the time and in all kinds of activities. second, as our true bilateral relations consist of these millions of daily individual exchanges, the most influential actors are our peoples and our societies. in this sense governments are not the main drivers of our intergrass phenomenon. sad as it may sound, our capital's involvement is marginal. governments and us diplomats like to think we development

bilateral relation and in reality it's the people that create it. we in government are always delayed in developing integration policies. the things that we do best is adjusting the rules and regulations to respond to it the integration trends that are already occurring. what both governments have done mostly is develop the framework to organize these powerful and permanent integration forces. we must understand that no country can isolate from others and much less so if isolationist tries to contain forces pulling it to watch its neighbors. the strongest integration forces are social and economic, not political. forces like mixed families, production and value chains, joint ventures, academic exchanges, tourism, cultural cross-overs and bidirectorial migration flows just to mention some of them. however, we do as governments try to help. a good example of how

governments are facilitating the integration of our countries is shared cooperation. it had been enhanced to make it more secure for both our nations forks facilitate the lawful movement of people and goods and join efforts in confronting the law full runs. our governments do not create the flows of people and goods. we make them easier to happen in a secure and efficient manner. through regulation adjustments, the governments of the u.s. and mexico have facilitated the integration of our societies by building a tighter international of our financial systems or by easing the development of better communications to the extend that nowadays a phone call to the u.s. and mexico is considered a local call. a true north mesh energy market has been created allowing both countries to benefit from the energy and all resources. on the movement of people it's important to mention that there has been a substantive change in

military flows. first, mexican migration went in a seasonal flow to a reverse flow while mexicans are returning to mexico and americansing are migrating to mexico and second, the flow of migrants is comprises less by mention caption and more by central americans. we must acknowledge the importance of sharing such a massive land border and through joint levels and hide levels of cooperation we've been able to avoid terrorists crossing our border. i am certain that another element of our countries coming closer together is a deeper understanding of our shared interests and the new threats that we face together. in terms of security, we will continue moving away from finger-pointing at each other and developing more collaborative common strategies. mexico and the united states are bound to remain together. our ties will continue growing because as ambassador gutierrez frequently say, as strong and successful mexico is in the best

interest of the united states just as a strong and successful united states is in the best interest of mexico. congratulations, andrew, once more on your contribution or putting these issues on top of the agenda. [ applause ] >> thank you, ax. very compel and appreciate that and please convey our greetings to everyone at the embassy including ambassador gutierrez and really an honor you can join us. we'll turn to our panel. we have three distinguished panelists here. before i introduce them, let me say we'll have questions and answers in a bit for the panel so you can tweet questions at us @migrationpolicy and use the #mpidiscuss if you want to tweet out about this event, and you can also e-mail questions to us at events@migrationpolicy.org.

you are welcome to tweet from the audience as well, of course. we really have a phenomenal panel, and let me start -- i'll introduce all three and then we'll do this as sort of a question, roundtable style than presentations. the honorable carla hills. carla is i think known to tench in this room. she is president of hills & company and also the former u.s. trade representative. she is the one who negotiated the original nafta agreement. >> the worst agreement that you've ever seen. >> yes. >> who negotiated the worst agreement ever. >> carla really is. she led our trade relations at probably the time when we had the greatest -- nafta is obviously the signature agreement, but there was just an enormous effervescence of commercial relationships at the end of the cold war so a really signature moment of change in u.s. trade policy. she also served as secretary

ever housing and urban development and chairs the inner american dialogue and chaired on the council of foreign relations as well, innumber rabble tightles that we can add here and thanks for make time to be here with us today. the honorable alan boursin, the former assistant secretary for policy in homeland security. i met him actually when i was a grad student. he won't remember this but i do. i was a grad student and he was the u.s. attorney for the southern district of california, and he has are -- did quite a few things in between that and homeland security, including being the head of the public schools in san diego. san diego unified district i believe it's called, and the secretary of education of the state of california which is an enormous position as well, but he has always had a special commitment to -- though he's worked globally and he's worked statewide and locally, you really span from local

government up to global concerns, has always had a particular interest in how the u.s. and mexico can work together and how this comes together at the border. and antonio ortiz mena joins us as the senior vice president of the stonebridge albright government and also a visiting professor at the edmund walls, school at georgetown university and many of you know him because for many years he was the minister counsellor at the mexican embassy for economic affairs. we also met his grad students also. we were both grad students together. >> i do remember. >> we actually taught together at the same time for peter smith, distinguished professor of latin american studies and we were teaching assistants back in the day. antonio, before he got into government and his current career, he was really one of mexico's most published and best respected scholars of trade, and

not only trade with the u.s. actually but trade with brazil, trade with europe, trade with asia and published extensively and he had actually been earlier in the nafta negotiated and been in -- >> the great agreement. >> yes, exactly. >> on that side, got into academia and really did a lot of the canon of mexican scholarship and international scholarship on mexico owes trade policy and moved into working in government and now into private sector, so great to have all three of you here. let me open up by asking carla about, you know, back in early 1980s. it would have been probably hard to imagine where we are today, and forget the political moment itself, but just how much trade there is going on between mexico and the united states and canada. what -- what difference did nafta make for our economy because ultimately us a sat down and negotiated this was about our competitiveness and the future of the american economy? what difference did nafta snake. >> nafta made an enormous

difference, but he had me start by saying that i think your book, and there's so much information about our governments, our people. if you walk outside doors of this institute and ask the first ten people you meet what do you think about the north american free trade agreement whoor do you think about the bilateral relationship with mexico or how do you think that the trio canada, mexico and the united states, how do they work together, probably you would get, well, it doesn't matter? but it does matter, and it matters hugely, and andrew seely has written a book that i have read and you cannot put it down because he takes the facts that we're all going talk about, and he translates them into a story, a human story, something that

you just -- you want to read that chapter to see what happened to that family that was in this place that was having these problems, but change did occur in the early 1990s in mexico. president salinas very much wanted to open the markets. it was highly restrict, and they had gone through a very difficult decade of the '80s. president bush sr., very much wanted to open the markets. we in the united states have 5% of the world's population, producing roughly 20% of the output. hey, you can't eat it all, and he believed firmly that if we could get north america marshalled together with less complex rules it would make a difference and it truly has. when you think of the

differences that the naf made, we now have a market of $19 billion,billion, 490 million consumers and it didn't occur before. we eliminated all the restrictions on industrial goods, most of the agriculture goods and we created rules to protect intellectual property, rules to protect investment and rules that if we had a dispute as even you do in families, that we had a mechanism for resolving those disputes and our interregional tradeexploded. it's now six times what it was then. we have 14 million jobs that are connected to our trade. our largest export destinations,

number one, canada global export destination, number two, mexico. we sell more to mexico than we sell to all the rest of latin america. indeed, we sell more to mexico than we sell to france, britain, germany and the netherlands. this is a bad agreement? this is an incredibly good agreement that has smoothed out the rules because 90% of our exporters are small and medium sized businesses and for them to be able to ship across borders as they do today, it makes a difference. one out of nine of our -- one out of nine jobs is connected to tourism. tourism is blossomed with mexico and with canada too, and so we want to hold on to these issues.

these are just the economics, but i think in terms of political and working in the global arena, having two neighbors friendly, north and south, two oceans east and west, we are so blessed. you look around the world and there's friction between the next door neighbor and the nation you're speaking of. here we have a family and we're working together. we share investments, tourism, trade and it's something we need to hold on to, but if we're to hold on to it, we need to educate the american people about exactly what is at stake and we have built supply lines

that are so well connected that it is made north america and the united states has gotten the dividend of it -- the most competitive region in the world. you want to cut off those pipelines, you want us to cut off the imports from mexico when 60% are interimmediatate products that make your product globally competitive, you're making a big mistake and when 40% of everything that we import from mexico is u.s. content, it tells you how interconnected we are, so i would say to everyone who's listening to this program and is reading this book, get out and march to keep our partnership with our southern and our northern neighbors strong, vibrant and lifelong, so --

[ applause ] >> we will come back to you on a moment on this because that was immensely compelling way to open up. i'm going to ask you -- not now but i will talk about an article that you wrote in "the washington post" a few days ago about how to handle migration at the borders. we'll come back to that in a mintd. before we do that. taking advantage of how we have these extensive flows happening across the border. one of the things that you were deeply involved in through the years and this started in the 1990s. i remember reading an article you wrote, maybe 2000 or 2001 and you wrote -- probably early 2000s and you wrote about this actually before it even happened. in the last 15 or 20 years we've moved toward managing the border in a different way. not thinking of it as a line but thinking in terms of secure flows. how did that change? we've gone from managing it as just one country to thinking about more shared forms of management. tell us what changed here.

>> andrew, let me building on the carla's calling this a family, to thank you you as duncan and the ambassador for writing the family history. what's remarkable about this book is -- it's always good to be at a place where you're supposed to teach when you end up learning and listening to the ambassador and to duncan and carla, it reminds me -- it's taught me why this book is so extraordinary and so important for everyone to read. i always look at the data and then i listen to the rhetoric and i have for many, many years not been able to figure out how the facts on the ground are so different from the perceptions and from the political rhetoric, but it is because, in fact, we don't know the stories. we don't know the human dimensions of this. in fact, we get data and the only anecdotes that we get and this is not a criticism of journalism.

journalism is always going to turn to the dangerous and the crisis, so the only anecdotes we get are bad stories and we've never actually till my friend andrew has taken on the task and the analogy and the comparison is actually not off at all, we start to see the positive stories. what makes the border, what makes the family? and, in fact, for most of the u.s./mexico history because of the 19th century war, lilenia, the line east to west that separated the two countries was the key to the relationship. to add insult to injury, most mexicans never forgot that the treaty of guadeloupe had resulted in the loss of half of mexico's territory and the insult was that most americans never knew it.

so that we had a line in which sovereignty was asserted very vigorously and aggressively by the mexican government because in asymmetrical relationship it was only at the line that the country's were genuinely equal because you could not cross that line. that's what andrew and i both saw when we arrived at the same time at the u.s./mexico border in the 1990's. what's so remarkable is, this is not a history that andrew's written. he was actually present at the creation. he's watched this evolve, but it was about the line, and it was finger pointing as the ambassador indicated. we were not cooperative, we were friendly afterall, after the war, we were technically demilitaryized but there was actually not a lot of trust, there was not a lot of

confidence and the result was that everything was at arm's length. mexican commentators would point to immigration and say, every mexican has the right to leave mexico and every u.s. official would say, but it's illegal to cross the line when you don't have a visa to do so. narcotics. why can't you mexicans control the narcotics in your country with the cartel and the felix gang. and mexico would say, if you didn't consume the drugs the way you do, we wouldn't have the problem. and so on and all the way down the line. every issue, particularly security issues where the occasion for finger pointing. what happened as a result of

nafta was that -- for the first time the flows north and south of people, goods, ideas counted more than the line east/west. we respected sovereignty, but, in fact, it was the flows and the interactions that are so well chronicled in vanishing frontiers that took precedence over lalenia so that we were no longer totally tie today what happened at the line and we could start to explore the relationships and that happened in security and we can look at that later in the context of particularly my graigration. >> that's the subject of chapter one. you were so deeply engaged in this and it's such -- it's only one of many things that happens at the border, it's such a fascinating visuals and visuals matter. what is this bridge to the

tijuana airport? >> as my wife says, i've had trouble holding on to jobs. my last job before coming back into the federal government was the chairman of the san diego airport. >> that's right, yes. >> and those of you that have flown into san diego know that it is a single runway and it's bounded by the harbor and it's bounded by the marine core training base, neither of which are going to move. so that you have the busiest single runway in the world. the issue was where do you -- where do you move it? for many years, for 50 years, san diego debated where the airport should be. should it stay downtown or should we move out to meeamar air force base. there was a vote taken during the iraq war. the marines did not want to give up miramar so, in fact, the decision was taken and i was

fortunate enough to get involved with 46 jurisdictions that were required to make a change to this little san diego airport, the lindberg field and we're sitting there and the airport authority came up with the plan to build the runways but the gates and so on and someone asked and said, well, what are you going to do when you run out of capacity at this airfield with a single runway? and dwight eisenhower had a great line, he said when you can't solve a problem, make it bigger. so we made the problem bigger because, in fact, 15 or 16 miles from san diego airport is rodriguez field in tijuana which has a runway and the capacity for several runways parallel to the border and that's what

started the process toward building what is called the bridge across the fence. it took seven years and i think there are a lot of fathers and mothers of this idea. the only credit i give to myself was that i was the forrest gump who managed to be at the airport authority and then became the commissioner of customs and border protection so that everyone who tried to kill it -- >> had to go through alan bersin. >> this is something we need to do and, in fact, for those of you that haven't experienced it, i urge you to do that. it's completely changed air traffic patterns in ways that were unanticipated. it's created possibility of movement of people from california, people from mexico city who don't want to fly through dallas and houston to fly to the west coast to san

francisco can now fly into san diego and fly up the coast and we've just begun exploring the implications of this remarkable bridge across the wall. >> the bridge across the wall allows people in san diego to use the tijuana airport almost as though it's a san diego airport. essentially, the tijuana airport became san diego's international airport. >> with customs clearance. >> yes. >> by using public/private venture and that alan was able to do with his colleagues, something that didn't cost taxpayers but at the same time solved an incredibly needed problem and brought san diego and tijuana together in very unique ways. if you want a symbol of where the relationship is really going, not because it's the most important thing that's ever happened. i put it up in the top ten or 15. it's one of the most important. it is the most visual is seeing that bridge across the border fence and realizing it wasn't driven by ideology, it was driven by two countries and two metro regions solving a problem

together and they now talk about themselves as a single metro region. i have a quote from the mayor of san diego who's a republican in the book where he says, we don't talk about two cities, we talk about one metro region. it's not just san diego city, it's the county as well and tijuana thinking of each other as a metro region that's stronger together. they can compete with l.a. and san francisco. there's a little bit of that in there as well. when you begin to think of them as a metro region. san diego is not the third city of california, it's one of the top tier a city. antonio, tell us about one of these other -- we'll talk immigration in a moment, tell us a little bit about mexican investment in the u.s., one of the more unusual stories that we've seen and one that we all knew that nafta was going to unleash investment in mexico and it was a piece of what the mexican government at the time in the middle of a stagnant economy in the late '80s and 90s wanted to generate investment in

mexico and that worked. there's a lot of american investment in mexico, g.e. and now walmart. you see american companies everywhere. one of the untold stories is the last ten to 12 years, we've seen enormous about of mexican investments in the united states and one of the stories -- the book starts with hazelton, pennsylvania, which was the epicenter of the anti-immigration debate. a city i enjoyed and has a great future, it has now four mexican owned factories in and around the city and you see a transformation where mexicans went from being the debate around immigration to being the providers of jobs for people in the city and how much this has happened in a lot of small towns. that is something none of us really predicted. >> yes, that's right. nafta chapter 11 was negotiated to allegedly protect canadian and u.s. investment in mexico. there was no such provision in the canada/u.s. agreement but there's a whole lot of mexican

investment in canada and also in the u.s. and this book you give a lot of great examples from -- i just noted down a couple of names -- a lot of you d't know what these companies do. you will have to read the book to know -- to know what they do. >> do you know the american brand names. >> you do know thomas english muffins or sara lee or borden. those are now owned by mexican companies and they're creating jobs in the u.s. but let me highlight one investment that i think really shows the potential of nafta and the pitfalls of the measures that are being taken as we speak. so there is a company called mid-continent nail in poplar bluff, missouri, close to

arkansas. in 2013 it was bought by a mexican steel company. by 2013, about 80 to 85% of the nail market in the u.s. was compromised of imports from china. and it was the largest remaining u.s. producer and thanks to the purchase of mid-continent, not only did the company survive, but it thrived. it doubled the amount of workers. it's still one of the major nail producers in the u.s. and how do they do that? yes, it's mexican investment in the u.s. but also it's the cross border supply chain. you need steel inputs from mexico being sent to poplar bluff, missouri, to transform into nails and keep manufacturing alive in the u.s. this is -- when this is not a zero sum game. without mexico it would be a

zero, okay. without the international connection, this would be a zero and with this new tariffs imposed on aluminum and steel, who knows what the future of mid-continent nail or many companies like that that survive because of the trade and investment links with mexico, it's important to see that its investment in trade, if those supply chains are disrupted and i think this brings home why trade and investment between mexico and the u.s. are good. i wanted to congratulate andrew on doing this because this is something i was never able to do at the mexican embassy. i used to ask and i'll be very frank a number of u.s. companies, help me tell the story about why your investment in mexico is positive for your bottom line for employment in the u.s., et cetera and i still think we have a ways to go.

a lot of the examples here are about mexican investments in the u.s. and how that is positive for the u.s., but we need more u.s. companies, speaking out and speaking frankly and sharing stories. i need today say that. i'll briefly mention two other examples that caught my attention. one of them has to do with north dakota and i think it's important because this is not a border story, at least it's more along the northern border than the southern border and you have a republican state senator, terry w terry waznick. what will happen if there's a tit for tat that effects agriculture trade? i will say it's thanks to nafta that the u.s. can export agriculture products to mexico

including from north dakota. this is not a border issue with this tit for tat tariffs. this whole thing can go away and thank you nafta. this is why they're able to do that. i did have a question because you said they export edible beans. i don't know who's buying the inedible beans. this is just an aside. okay. and then you also have another story about energy interdependence. now mexico, the u.s. and canada did nothing to have the resource and damage that they have in hydrocarbons and wind and solar but we do have to work together to take advantage of that and andrew provides a great example. so there's a mountainous region along the california border and it's a great way -- great place

to have wind energy. you put wind turbines where the wind is. you cannot have a provision to put it -- you go where the wind is. so a u.s. company invested in wind turbines to provide renewable energy to california that has mandates on renewable energy and i think this is another great example about how we can work together and this is thinking about the future and with all due respect, this is not about coal. we have to think about what the future has in store for us. this is a hopeful story and let me end with just an optimistic note. i'm also a medium to long-term optimist and go back to hazelton.

andrew and i taught a course and he always started the course with hazelton, pennsylvania, and always forgot the name. now i'll remember. it's hazelton, pennsylvania, and i did some back of the envelope math. the population of hazelton is 25,000. the population of the u.s. is about 237 million so there are about 13,000 hazelton stories to be told, okay, and i think the hazelton story is very, very powerful. you mentioned joe madden from the cubs. so he plays a big role. again, i won't do the spoiler alert. >> he's from hazelton. >> you have to read this to understand what joe madden from the cubs has to do with u.s./mexico relationships. >> so you got to read the book. >> read the book.

so i'm optimistic because i see that people do make a difference and you talk about individuals making a difference and i really want to congratulate you, andrew, because you've been mixing passion with knowledge with dedication and i think that we need more of that and to be frank, the opposite of that is when we mix misinformation with passion. that can lead to very troubling results, so kudos to andrew and i'm sure that your book will make a big difference. >> thank you, antonio. [ applause ] >> let me do one more quick round here and we'll open it to up your questions and comments. let me recognize ambassador jim jones and i didn't introduce the ambassador from jacobson. very pleased she could join us. she just stepped down as

ambassador. great to have you back in washington. we miss you in mexico, but also great to have you here. carla, you and i talked about the auto industry and it features big in the book as well. when you came in as ustr, the u.s. commercial debates had always been about about what's going to happen to the u.s. auto industry, the biggest most prominent topic was the notion of the auto industry was going out and foreign imports would eat our lunch and japanese cars, german cars, korean cars and italian cars were going to flood the market. that didn't happen. hard to find an imported car these days. what happened? >> auto industry shows the benefits of opening the markets. today our supply chains between our north northern and southern neighbors are very tight.

we have about 14 million jobs that are connected with our supply chains so if we cut those off, we're going to be really injured in the united states. this didn't happen before, first of all, mexico was not purchasing that many products, but by becoming efficient and getting the very best geographically located geographic locations of that widget you need today make your product competitive made our auto industry take off. now we do have a problem and the fact that we are producing 40% more product with fewer workers because of automation, but that is a domestic issue. we need to have a program that trains people who are no longer using their hands on the

manufacturing floor, but our trained by 20 weeks of training to deal with the technology of the 21st century. so we need to keep our connections with mexico and canada and it does worry me that we are taking this action under an old 232 statute, 1962 called, to protect our national security. it's hard for me to see how we are injured on steel and aluminum and having interactions with our northern and southern neighbors who are two of our largest suppliers and some of that supply is like finished steel. we don't even make it in the united states, but we're going to put a tariff on it. that will make it very tough for some of our industries to be

competitive and the defense department has already said publicly, we don't use much metal, probably 2% or 3%. we're much more worried about the tariffs that are placed upon our closest allies and i agree with that, so what we need to do is to maintain our relationship with our closest allies, focus on the problem that we see with respect to oversupply, join hands with our closest allies and confront the problem directly and that would be talking to china about subsidying the steel and aluminum industries and making a deal with them rather than applying subsidies to our allies with whom we need to work in a

political fashion but also in an economic need. >> is there -- today, is the industrial -- is industrial production in the united states tied with mexico and canada? >> absolutely. >> is it possible to think about american industrial production without thinking of the neighbors? >> so many lines of industrial production are -- you can see it in the -- in what we import. 25% of what we import from canada is u.s. content. 40% of what we import from mexico is u.s. content. it's 2% with japan. 4% with china. in other words, we're shipping back and forth across the border on so many things, auto being number one, where you make one of the products, put it on, ship

it back. it goes across our southern border in the auto section about five times on average. that's amazing and we want -- if we cut that off, we'll be far less competitive globally. >> i think that's one of the things that's been missing in this debate, how much you can't turn the clock back because, in fact, we are really integrated across the border and what we do, when we do damage to our relationship with the neighbors, it turns out we do damage to ourselv ourselvou yourselves. i would like to turn to the issue of border and immigration. we'll hear from doris at the end here. you wrote an article in "the washington post" a few days ago. one of the things that's happened as we know is that since 2007 there are very few mexicans crossing the border

illegally. there's large legal flows of mexicans returning to mexico. it's a stable number of mexicans in the united states, but the number of mexicans crossing in unauthorized fashion has dropped dramatically, but we've seen a rise in the past few years of south americaens coming across but this has led to cooperations and tensions in the relationship between mexico and the united states. you have some ideas about how this could be handled. it seems that the tendency right now in washington is to push back on mexico and to say that mexico needs to fix this but you had some other ideas. >> mark twain had a terrific bit of advice. he said, first get the facts straight then you can distort them as much as you like and that's what we see with the issue of migration. andrew's right. as mexico is grown into the 13th

largest economy in the world it is no longer the sending country that we experienced over the last five or six decades. it's become a transit country because the driving factors, the push factors are now effecting south americans in the north triangle of guatemala, el salvador and honduras. what we discovered early on in trying to deal with the migration issue as doris mizner and janet reno led the effort, it is extraordinarily difficult to manage the border line in terms of crossing and the repatriation of migrants. if you try to do it without the cooperation of your neighbor and it's taken us 15, 20 years with the help of duiplomats to build

relationships with our mexican counterparts so you begin to jointly manage the migration issue at the border. but populism has always exploited the negative stories, the negative anecdotes to make immigration a hot button inflamed issue in domestic politics of this country and others and that's what we're seeing now with the talk of the wall or the declaration that we're going to prosecute every one of the people who comes across the border in a criminal -- federal criminal court. that may make as we say in the article for a good sound byte but it's not possible. the number of migrants apprehended in the last year crossing illegally for the most part from south america numbered just over 300,000. you could not possibly prosecute

every one of those people. we don't have enough federal court, judges or marshals, probation officers or detention space to do that. that's a hollow idea that may have a short-term effect but the initial data this month indicate that's it has not slowed the flow of south americans. so we need to address down stream to two large issues, long-term is the driving -- the factors that drive people out of the northern triangle and we have to address the fact that we have a broken immigration system, which everyone agrees is broken, although we don't seem to be able to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform. those are the two elements that have to be addressed, but in the -- while we're waiting for those, it seems that rather than talking of walls or talking about zero tolerance prosecution, that we should be addressing the two major issues.

one is we need to partner with mexico even more than we have done. the fact of the matter is, that mexico in defense of its own national security and public safety has stopped 3,500,000 south americans who crossed into mexico on their way to the united states. imagine the impact on the southwest border if mexico was not cooperating with our needs, but doing it for their own purposes and driven by their own policy requirements. so we need to strengthen our relationship with mexico with regard to the coresponsibility and the comanagement of a migration problem that is continental in scope and not just limited to laleinia. it's the flows from south american and indeed in some cases from around the world. the second is, that we have a broken immigration court system.

we should not be emphasizing the need for federal prosecutions but we do need to address an immigration system that has hundreds of thousands of cases in the backlog that are waiting hearings. if we had crisp ad adjudications of migrant rights, we would not see what we see today, which is many people waiting for hearings two, three and four years which leads not only to the building up of equities of people who then live here, develop jobs, have families and then suddenly we have a hearing four years and we're going to suddenly ripped families apart that makes it difficult on that end but looking at it from the other perspective, if i'm in hazelton and suddenly i have 16 new neighbors who are waiting for an immigration court hearing and i wonder what is happening, you can imagine the kind of tensions that build up politically and

that, in fact, have occurred in this country. we need to strengthen our relationship with mexico, we need to strengthen our immigration court system and we have to stop looking for the silver bullet that simply does not exist when it comes to a complex, social issue such as migration. >> thank you. there is a deal in there to really begin fixing our system in a way that is both recognizes our immigrant heritage own our need for immigration and at the same time the fact that we do need enforcement regime and we need control of the borders and want to move toward that as well. there are ways of -- >> one way of doing that, actually, is the third country agreement which is an agreement that says that if i am a south american and i am driven out of my home by reason of fear for my children's safety because of gang pressures that actually

mexico would be the place in which that asylum would be asserted and that would have some very beneficial effects for our migration policy. on the one hand, it would dis to your knowledge false asylum claims and on the other hand, it would provide the refuge that we need to provide for people that are generally in danger of persecution in their home countries. what we need is not completely open borders nor sealed borders. we need the rule of law to govern at the border and in terms of dealing with flows toward the border. we cannot do it without mexico. >> let me ask you one more question quickly because you've been involved in daca and i don't talk about it much in the book but i believe that 79% of daca recipients right now are mexican born. this is an issue that ultimately is an american issue that we need to deal with but if does

have bilateral effects. this is an issue in which 85% of americans, 80 to 85% think there needs to be a permanent solution. >> as a result of that, after the failure of immigration, comprehensive immigration reform in the obama administration, the decision was taken -- recommended by the secretary to promulgate the daca regulations which was received and now upwards of 700,000 young mexicans who were brought to this country by their parents and grew up here and know no other country were given a right to remain here and renewing that right every two years. even president trump says that he is in favor of the daca kids and yet he has said to congress, congress you must be the ones to

fix the problem. a federal court in san francisco and also i believe in new york has ruled that the way in which the daca regulations were rescinded by the trump administration was illegal and as a result of that, the expulsion, the deportation of the daca young people has been halted. the matter is on appeal. it's just been argued in the ninth circuit in california and it will go to the supreme court and we hope there is a legislative solution to this issue because why there may not be broad agreement on many immigration matters, 85% of the american people have spoken on behalf of these young people. they've made enormous contributions to our military and education institutions and to our communities. >> before we go to the audience, very quickly wanted to ask you

antonio about how mexicans are responding to the current moment? mexico has become a target of much of u.s. policy, shall we say? it's become an object of the american president's attention. i actually say some where in the book and i know i said this to a few of you individually that sometimes when we talk about mexico we're not talking about mexico, we're talking about ourselves. much of what we think about mexico is a symbol of our own struggles. mexico is our struggle -- we talk about mexico, sometimes we're talking about globalization. it really isn't mexico. sometimes its china or a feeling we're losing power in the world, sometimes it's a fear of whether we can still compete. not all conversations about mexico are really conversations about mexico. some of them really are about ourselves. that said, in mexico when people hear these conversations, it does have their name attach to it.

how are mexicans responding? >> i would say that they are responding in a very mature and even headed and patient way and i sense a contrast between the time when the nafta was being negotiated and the present. i have a privilege of being a member of the nafta team and it was a pretty controversial issue back then. we were educated by saying that the u.s. took half of mexico and the mexican -- there's some monument to the children that died rather than surrender. you have the national anthem. this was our world view. i even had some strong discussions with my dad. it's a generation. what are you doing with the nafta? you have to be very careful about the u.s. they took half our land.

this seems like the distant past but now we see the u.s. as our ally, our friend, our partner, as bff as some people would say, right, and suddenly our bff unfriends us and mexico -- >> and you're trying to figure out why. >> i wouldn't say mexico is even scared. mexicans under shock like, what. what happened? we're friends we have to get along. all that complicated history is in the past. we need to get along now more than ever, so there's like a disbelief, misunderstanding but i think there is still a distinction between the current u.s. government and the u.s. as a nation. the u.s. -- those are two different things and it's important to keep those two issues separate. from a policy perspective, i

think mexicans have been very, very cool headed, right? today, as i was making my way here i saw that the mexican federal register had just published the tariffs in reprisal against u.s. 232 actions but still it's a measured expected response. we're not being very aggressive and i would say that what i'm stating holds across political affiliations across regions and ages. i joked a short time ago that the current u.s. president managed something that only the mexican president was just to unite all mexicans. we fight over a lot of thing. we are supporting our soccer team for the world cup and we have the same views on the nafta, the same views on the wall and the same views on needing to have positive and constructive relations with the u.s. >> great.

thank you. i've noticed that as well. i've been actually very impressed in that evolution of -- this would be a moment to bring back that ultra nationalism in the past and it doesn't seem that that's happened. let's go to the audience. if you are in the room, it's easy. raise your hand. there's a hand up over there. if you are not in the room and you want to ask a question you can tweet to us@immigration policy. let's go to that hand. if you can identify yourself as well. >> i'm a professor of law as texas a & m university and just one quick anecdote to add to antonio's message. i was born in 1982. when i was starting in mexico, our public schoolbooks included nafta. so it included the war against the united states but at the end of the chapter, it's now we're

going to be part of a north america region so we were raise today believe that mexico and the united states were deemed to be together. we're a generation raised under that perspective but i think now i don't know what's going to happen. >> i want to piggyback a little bit on the mexican government reaction. there's a lot of push in mexico to re-evaluate the relationship with the united states. i would like to talk more about that layer of the relationship. we focus a lot on the mexican embassy and u.s. embassy. there's a lot of memorandum of understandings signed by local agencies, by local governments, by municipalities. the level of understanding that bureaucrats and agencies have with each other and i would like to talk about that. >> let's take two or three

questions and then we'll come back to the panel. >> thank you for the book. i have a question about identity and i want to be concise. i think your book is trying to get at the issue of identity in many ways and it's some ways at its core but if we are to educate future generations about this extraordinary relationship between mexico and the u.s., how is that identity involving and i want to be specific, in our coverage of the -- these u.s. born children who are now ending up in california, i tell the story of a 9-year-old from california who's now in tijuana, but who sees himself as neither the u.s. or a mexican citizen and i want to know whether this -- these new generations are going to in some way change,

alter the relationship very deeply precisely in a way that you've described this relationship as a family and plea please, if anybody has any thoughts about this identity issue on the panel. thank you. >> back there. >> thank you, andrew, for the book. this is a two prong question. probably one for antonio and for you. how strong are our mexican domestically against protectionism and the second one for andrew, is, is it mexico ready to be an open society for receiving asylum seekers at this moment? the violence is playing very hard against making refugee claims there, how ready is

mexico to model of cultural society? >> there was a hand up right in the back here as well. >> i'd like to turn attention to the nafta side agreements. the beginning of my career i worked on issues related to environment and that was one of the issues covered in the side agreements to the nafta. it seems to me that the problem that we see both in the u.s. and in mexico now is that those who have not benefited from economic integration are raising their hand and saying what about us. what needs to be done going forward on environment and labor issues? what might have been done 25 years ago that would have maybe not prevented the kind of

backlash we're seeing but maybe have mitigated it somewhat? >> those are great set of questions. let's go back to the panel. antonio, we'll get one more in and do another round if we have time. >> thank you very much. >> before we go back to the panel. i did a quick change around there. sorry. >> thank you very much. congratulations, andrew. usually when you think about innovation, you don't think in countries like mexico, you think in countries like maybe singapore, korea -- i don't know -- many other, but we do realize when we read your book that there are important stories about innovation across the border, so my question would be

in your experience and through your interviews, which do you think are the best examples of possibilities incorporation on innovation between our two countries? >> let's go back to the panel. we'll go in the same order. carla, if you want to go ahead and start any of the questions you want to answer feel free to take them and we'll try to get every one among all the panelists. you don't have to answer every one, though. >> the question that seemed most directed to me was the one about environmental issues under the north america free trade agreement. those were put in a side agreement to get it passed through our congress in 1993 by the clinton administration and in the past 25 years we've moved on. i think there's been a greater

appreciation of the fact that we need to work together on environmental issues. we've had the paris environmental accord, of course the u.s. pulled out of that, but that doesn't make the environment any less of a critical issue for man kind to work together and so the side agreements could be put in to the nafta. i strongly believe that the nafta provides a very good foundation for our relationship, not only our relationship but as a model to the rest of the world. you remember when we negotiated that agreement, we were also in the process of upgrading the general agreement on tariffs and trade and we had no rules to deal with intellectual property which would protect investors to

have a dispute settlement. when we finished the nafta, we had all those rules and within four months of the nafta taking effect, the then 126 trade ministers came back to the table, finished the round to upgrade the gap, put in protections on intellectual property, investments services, all the things they copied from the nafta, including creating the world trade organization. so that north america became a model for what the open market architecture should be like in a regional situation and we need to keep that and we need to modernize the nafta today. i strongly believe, you know, our technology is moved ahead. you didn't have a cell phone in your pocket. you didn't tweet. we didn't sell services over the

internet and we need to modernize the nafta, not keep it at last century but move to the 21st century and continue to be a model for the world. so i think it is absolutely critical that we maintain and upgrade the agreement. >> alan? >> let me address the memorandum of agreement issue and the capabilities of mexico regarding asylum going forward. there are hundreds as the question stated, hundreds of memoranda of agreement that have memorialized patterns of interaction and ways of doing business. those ways of doing business and patterns of interaction don't disappear and, in fact, they have superseded in many ways the

memoranda of agreement that initiallyized the interaction. so that, in fact, with the exchange of migrants with the placement of mexican customs officers in laredo airport in texas, with cbp in otay. all of those interactions that were initially established through memoranda of agreement continue and it will only be undone with specific directives and frankly the people in charge of homeland security and the other departments don't see the benefit of removing those interactions and they will -- they will continue not withstanding the review of memoranda of agreements on both sides. with regard to the ability of

komar which is the mexican asylum and refugee assistance agency, it is very small and undeveloped, but, in fact, you can ask -- we have developed an extensive refugee and asylum capacity in citizenship in immigration services but we didn't always have that. this is an occasion to start to build that capacity with the experienced not only from u.s. agencies but also from international agencies to say to mexico, you are now a transit country. you will shortly become a destination country with regard to migration and you have to build the capacity to handle asylum claims and refugee claims. i believe the mexican people have indicated they're concern for human rights of migrants and they would continue to support

this, but, yes, undeveloped now but, in fact, we're at the beginning of a new era in migration and it should be the occasion to build up that capacity. >> antonio? >> briefly on the side agreements. i would say that most of the actions that have to be taken are at the national level not at the binational or regional level. for example, the u.s. there's something called trade adjustment assistance. why does it have to be assistance? why can't it be proactive to make sure there's ongoing training for workers and why does it have to be trade related? what if it's technology related. it gets very complicated. it's easy to blame trade and especially the worse agreement that the u.s. has ever subscribed for everything that happens in the u.s., but it is just wrong. it's just wrong. you need to do a lot of things domestically in terms of mexico, u.s. cooperation perhaps ambassador jacobson will speak

about this but it will be great to have much more work transfers between mexico and the u.s. mexican companies and u.s. companies in mexico so they understand business processes but also each other's cultures. much more labor mobility in that way would be great and much more student mobility now that i'm at it, much more than that. technically, one way to get stronger protection for environmental labor issues is to join the tpp but oops, okay, i didn't do that. sorry. >> you're going to make me cry. >> a second way to address that is to make sure that there is a strong dispute mechanism in the nafta that covers new, ambitious commitments on trade in the environment. the u.s. wants a water downed dispute mechanism. that really won't cut it and that's all i have to say about

the side agreements. now about the antibodies in mexico, i would say that they're pretty strong. i think that the u.s. received a vaccine with dr. hawley in the 1930s, but i don't know if the effects are wearing off. i don't know. in terms of mexico, i think the vaccine is still working pretty well and when mexico talks about shift in trade policy, they talk about trade diversification, about having different markets rather than protection and, in fact, in april last year when it seemed that president trump was about to formally start withdraw procedure from the nafta, you didn't hear anyone in mexico saying, good, let's take this opportunity. i was very happy to see that a lot of former nafta critics that didn't like me and my colleagues were saying no, no, don't get rid of nafta. there's broad support for open and international trade but there will be more of a focus on

forging closer trades in latin america, mexico did become apart of the cptpp. so i don't see any risks of back sliding. i don't think protection would be the solution for any of the challenges we face. i think mexico will have a more proactive, say -- i wouldn't call them industrial policy but closer links between business and government, to make sure that there's a plan that can work in an open economy. so i'm not concerned about mexican protectionism. and lastly, on the assessment of the bilateral relationship, look, it's one of the world's most complex relationships. mexico can diversify trade links up to a limit. i just finished a paper and i examined mexico's trade relat n relations to the present. mexico has tried to diversify

trade and investment links. you know what the success is? pretty close to zero. the u.s. is always the main partner of the u.s. and always will be andbe. mexico will become increasingly important for the u.s. it will become thie ineighth largest economy in the world. we just have to understand each other. we're not moving anywhere. that's it. >> that's why people should buy the book. >> thank you. let me answer a few of the questions quickly and then i'll introduce roberta jacobson and answer one or two questions when she finishes and doris will close. the one thing that wasn't mentioned there's a lost opportunity in nafta to think about wages in mexico. wages in mexico has come up. it has come up in the export

oriented economy. mexico has good laws on paper but not always fold in terms of labor and there's a missed opportunity and the u.s. proposal to simply say certain percentage of autos need be made by people making $15 is not the answer. that's an exclusionary way. but there's way to build in protections that many mexicans would be enthusiastic to have in there. to antonio's question a lot of innovation. the last chapter in here that was fun to write about innovation between the u.s. and mexico. i'm looking at a silicon valley-like. it's this move from, you know, basic manufacturing. what changed with nafta 25 years ago mexico was a piece manufacturer for the global economy. you have this sort of movement up the chain where mexico moves into advanced manufacturing and

increasing complex process. you see the beginning of mexican companies moving into like the auto industry as major parts supplier. there's a lot of major mexican auto parts supplier that do sophisticated design and applications. they have moved up the value chain in significant ways. but there's also, the fun chapter was about looking at tech innovation and hanging out with start ups. i hung out with owe start ups. to be honest the silicon valley of mexico of 25, 30 years. not the silicone valley of today. it's beginning. but companies are moving into the space, getting capital and really starting to expand and you see a lot more that could take off. the biggest area that's been financial technology. particularly how in a country that has a lot of people who are not in the banking system how do you get people in the banking system in creative ways. that's the niche and kind of

think you can take to south america, central america, southeast asia and africa. so these companies will expand not just in mexico but other parts of the world. on two questions of identity and migration and we have a question from gretchen. thank you for joining us. very respected group in mexico. who asked about specifically the third-party agreement. and similar to pepe's question. i applaud alan for putting it on the table. it's good to have it on the table because mexico should think how it brings up its asylum procedures to international standards and how it deals with asylum and having this conversation is very healthy. we could see a point somewhere in the future where there would be mutual say third-party agreements between the united states and canada, and people would apply and the first

country they come in to, but it probably -- there is no capacity right now, with no disrespect to mexico but what capacity hasn't been developed to be able to do this in a way that would be in any way narrow to central americans moving in. and where there are mutual recriminations. if i was the mexican government my sense hard to get into this complex negotiation and that's, gretchen, the reality of where it is. it's not going to proceed probably because the political moment is not there. but it shouldn't proceed yet either because the capacity isn't there. but ate healthy conversation to start. to pepe's other part on this. mexico has not been a multi-ethnic country before. at least -- other than with i y

indigenous people. the beginning of people around african descent in mexico. there's debate on that. mexico has, if you have a million or so americans living there. many of whom are bicultural. you have more and more central americans staying in mexico. you have migration because of economic ties. this question of acmulti-national country will start. how can you begin to deal with diversity in a country that has not always thought about that as a calling card, right? i know roberta spent some time on this. this will be a fascinating discussion. i talked a little about this. one of the great interviews is david luna who is the bureau chief for the "wall street journal". he compares how it was growing

up as a mexican born american living in mexico and how it is now raising his own children and how much that mexico has changed, at least mix city to raise his own children as proud mexicans even though he has american and british heritage and how much easier it is today. that's a pending discussion. happening more on the border region. finally, to the first or second question, i think identity will make a huge difference. antonio referred to this. ken stern who used to be president of npr -- identity will be a huge difference. we've seen with it younger mexicans. our first speaker said this as well. younger mexicans grew up with this notion that u.s. is who they are. global affairs did some polling,

look at how americans see mexico. and they broke it out by ages. younger americans of much more intuned with mexico. as they are with immigration more broadly. i think what you do have is they grew up with mexico being part of their life. mexican immigration being part of their life. increasingly, many have mexican heritage. one of the things, there's enormous amount of intermarriage between children of mexican immigrants and people not of mexican heritage in this country. increasingly this is who we are going to be. generations on both sides of the border have assimilated this more than older generations have. it gives me enormous hope for the future. a lot of tensions on the way but look different down the road. with that let us move, let me introduce -- i'll do it sitting for logistics, let me introduce

roberta jacobson who is a distinguished public servant of our country. thank you for being here. you just left being ambassador to mexico of the united states to mexico through the obama administration and the first year and a half of the trump administration. she has served in many roles since the 1990s in the state department, has a masters from fletcher. i met her had she was dealing with these issues. she served as deputy assistant secretary for mexico-canada economic affairs. then on to assistant secretary for western hemisphere where she was not only dealing with these issues but the entire hemisphere and responsible for the opening of cuba and played a huge role in our relationship, developing relationship with cuba. then we were all immensely pleased when she was nominated to be ambassador to mexico. really through some turbulent times was the steadying hand in

this relationship. you split the difference both on being a true public servant who represents the government and serves the elected government and at the same time always remembering us, reminding us of the larger relationship between our two countries and you left with both immense respect in mexico but i think immense respect from so many of us in the united states who have followed your path. it's good to have you back in washington. thanks for being here. so roberta, can you offer some remarks? [ applause ] good morning. thank you, andrew, and thank you all for being here. first, i want to say that when andrew first asked me to be here today my first thought was i don't know if i'm going to have time to read the book by then, by the event, because i didn't know exactly how soon i would be leaving mexico and whether i have time.

i didn't have much time to read while i was there. that's okay we're not necessarily going talk about the book, you don't have to read the book. happily, i did read the book. i did have time to read the book because now it's exactly one month since i left mexico and i do mean happily because it is among other things the perfect antidote for the cynical exhausted negative former ambassador or government bureaucrat coming out of a difficult job. it is everything that, that you would like to see in writing about this relationship. it is positive without being pollyannish. backed by data. i thank you for that contribution. as i thank npi and the wilson next's mexican institute which are always contributing to this relationship. i also, when i saw the list of

people who were going to be here, i thought well heck that's an incredible lineup, i definitely want to be part of that. anything that doris and carla and alan and antonio are a part of i want to be a part of. but i'm also really delighted to see ambassador jones here, who has been such a wonderful mentor of mine. and i want to recognize one other person here. and that's jim dickmyer. jim is a former diplomat -- are you still a diplomat or former diplomat. more of us are now retired. but jim was the public affairs officer in mexico at a particularly crucial time and i learned an enormous amount from him during that period and i want to thank him for being here and all he's done over the years. to me falls the task of final speaker, which i first thought was an incredible opportunity because i get to hear what

everyone else says and then i can comment on it and isn't that much easier and of course now what i realize all the smart people said the things that need to be said and i get left with what? so i will make a few comments, somewhat random, i fear, but hopefully a little bit of commentary that hasn't been said. i think first, one of the things that andrew said about the first chapter is the title of "intimate strangers" is a very, very good one. when most of us who were raised on alan's writing "distant neighbors" look since that time, some form of reformulation of that is what we're looking at because it's not true any more. and i used in the first speech when i arrived in mexico a comment that is in the book attributed to somebody else, but i'm not sure whether it was around the same time but i know

that it spread from my first speech which was we really aren't like neighbors because as you said neighbors can move if you don't like who is living next door. we're much more like family. and a dysfunctional family at times like that. where you fight. you argue at the dinner table. but in the end you're stuck with each other and actually you love each other. and sometimes we need an intervention, but we need to work it out. we are family. the other thing that strikes me there's a mexican expression that i think perfectly fits what's going on in our relationship right now. mexicans say -- it's complicated. everything from a bug bite to nuclear apocalypse. but the fact is that this relationship is complicated right now and it is the perfect reference. i do think that as has been the case for a very long time

governments are inevitably behind the trends that their societies advance. and we are seeing a period of that yet again. i think ambassador hill would probably agree that when we negotiated nafta, as difficult as it was, we were in some ways c codifying because sources in society pushed that relationship forward and i think right now when we're trying to update it, we are doing so cognizant that there's no way back. you can have a perspective that says we would like to go back 30 years, but where it's at is to look at what's happening on the ground, as andrew does so well, and try and not just update nafta to bring it in line with

what's happening, right? it had no energy chapter, it has to do better at ipr, ecommerce, et cetera. how can we facilitate things going forward? when i was ambassador one of the things i ud to say to folks writing speeches for me was i would get a speech and i would say where are the humans in this speech. there are no people in this speech. these are excellent talking points. but there are no human beings in them. a really good speech, like a really good book has people in them. and so i'm particularly grateful to andrew for telling the stories, because what i constantly was asking for was where are the stories that illustrate the page of statistics that you have given me. right in the statistics are compelling for those of us inside the beltway, right. they are very compelling, right? trade has quadrupled or

increased six times. $1.6 billion of trade every day. et cetera, et cetera. crossing the border. where are the people in those stories. who has benefitted from this? and the answer is in this book, and in these stories. i wanted to talk briefly about the idea of americans in mexico because it's something i worked pretty hard on. the numbers actually probably between 1.6 and 1.8 million. that's americans who live full or part time in mexico. it's a very rough figure because we have no way of really measuring unless they use u.s. government services. but we do think that about 600,000, as many as 600,000 americans are children of people who returned to mexico, whether voluntarily or deported, who were born in the united states. and we've launched a program, the u.s. government has launched

a program with the mexican government in which we are trying to ensure that those 600,000 or more kids, because they range from newborn to over 18, get their documentation. they are entitled to usa passport. but just as important is their mexican documentation because despite the fact that they might be absolutely have a right to go to school in mexico, they won't allowed in without their papers. they won't access the health care system. and if, as i think the question implied, if we can provide their u.s. documentation and their mexican documentation when they return to mexico, we may lose hundreds of thousands of kids who are then, frankly, fodder for any criminal enterprise or other bad future because they don't go to school, don't access

the health care system, don't use what they can. so some of the best things that i did were the public service announcements to try to get the word out. it was fun for me because i got to meet jesse and joy who were some of my favorites and because they were binational they helped on this. also these passport fairs we do. we go out, our consular folks go out, we don't have consulates in every state. working with local officials we try to encourage every family to come in. we help people to get the birth certificates for those kids in the u.s. and mexican officials helped to do the same so they could be registered. i think that's absolutely critical. i would also note one annetecdo. there's a trend where many americans who originally had

settled have moved because another city is more mexican than san miguel these days. so i think, you know, there is this growing together that is absolutely happening and my own view i've often said as a government bureaucrat for nearly 32 years, you have to be an optimist. if you weren't you would slit your wrists. but i remain optimistic about the relationship in the long term. it makes too much sense. we have too much in common. we are joined by geography and families. and we live better and provide better for our people when we are cooperating. i used to also say that one of the distinctions between mexicans and americans and alan alluded to it, is that mexicans live their history every day. they remember every part of the

history, and the offense. it is taught to third children, it is recalled. americans, on the other hand, have a tendency to forget our history the next day. it is one of the things that makes us wonderful. we reinvent ourselves all the time. but it is a very significant drawback sometimes as well. and the best thing would be if we could meet in the middle. conscious of our history and how we each see each other without living it every day or forgetting it every night. i'm particularly happy to see alan here because i will be honest with you, alan used to drive me crazy as a policymaker. because he was tenacious in moving forward on things that everybody else said were impossible. and that is the sign of somebody who truly has a vision, and who

really believes that all the stuff that other people say can't to be done can to be done. and it was a remarkable change in our own thinking when we started thinking about pushing the border away and doing things like pre-clearance or unified cargo inspection. one of the other things i wanted to comment on was the notion of nafta as a shift. i think one of the important things that gets lost in the nafta debate today is that nafta wasn't just a commercial agreement. and it wasn't just a change in our economies and more industries becoming integrated. nafta began a change in the way mexicans thought about themselves and the way they interacted with the world. politically, even psychologically. when we talk about how younger

mexicans see themselves, you know, we're not talking about a doctrine or talking about why they should feel so estranged from the rest of the world, so separate. special, but not separate. and i think one of the things that was important in this was a shift towards a bet, if you will, that mexican policymakers made beginning with nafta that the future for mexico was hitched to north america, not necessarily to the south or east-west, which does not mean that mexico does not want good relations with the rest of latin america and it does not mean that they won't, shouldn't or otherwise consider diversification of trade. but that notion that mexico should open to the world and had

nothing to fear or be defensive about opening to the world was a big change in the way mexicans thought and saw themselves and is what is distinct from 30 years ago, i think, and i'm not sure you can put that genie back in the bottle. the other thing i think is that the reforms that have been enacted under the current government, the very beginning of the current government, there's been a lot of debate about, do the reforms stay in place. will thereabout a weakening of those reforms. andrew's story is very interesting to me because they underscore the importance of those reforms and, in fact, deepening of them going forward. if you think of what others say about the future of technology and what andrew just said about start ups, that absolutely cannot happen without education reform. i don't know enough about education to know if this reform

or another reform but mexico desperately needs radiation reform because otherwise its young people will not be educated for jobs that they could move into in the 21st century and we're not just talking about, you know, kids who can go to school, we're talk about the fact that k through 12 has to be different because you need more than 12 years of education. energy reform is going to be essential, andrew referred to an amount of oil that mexico is pumping. in fact, figures that i've seen are under 2 million barrels a day. and if that's true, which i think it is, that's the reason for opening up partnerships, not ownership but partnerships in mexico and it's essential for the future of mexico, both on

nontraditional and renewable and on fossil fuels. finally and i really think that this is one of the most important things i learned in mexico, which is the importance of coning with judicial reform and the rule of law. if there was a slogan i came away with, ala james carrville, it's the rule of law stupid. it affects everything. it affects everything. all of the positives and negatives that we've talked about today are affected by whether or not the judicial reform takes hold, the oral trials take old, they reform that whole system, and people have faster more open access to justice and less corrupting influence because it is more tr transparent and open. it levels the playing field for

the economy. it may even reduce some of the influence of narcotics traffickers or other criminal groups in government and society. but i will say that there's a backlash against that that's dangerous. right? people see criminals walking free on bail. they think they are criminals. that didn't used to happen. and this push and pull is very, very worrisome about some changes that may happen and it's really important that it is pursued. a judge in the yucatan told me -- she was very much with the new program. she said there was a woman and a man in her court. the woman was alleging the man had stolen a rooster. she came to an agreement with him that he would pay her two roosters. next door neighbor. and the woman said, he has to go

to jail. and the magistrate said but i'm getting you more than what you lost. and you will have it immediately. and the woman said no, no, i want him to go jail. i just pounded on the table. and this is the mentality that needs to be changed because under the old system everyone went to jail. in fact, they went to jail for pretrial detention sometimes longer than their sentence would have been. but people think why should i just settle for two roosters when this bad man should go to jail. and his farm would fall into disarray and his family would end up without anything to eat and her own property values would go down. so it's a long process. but it's the only way that the critical issue on most people's minds in this election, number one, which is corruption can be attacked and that is through

meaningful rule of law and institutional strengthening. let me stop there. i have a lot of other random comments but i'll save them for questions. thank you very much. [ applause ] we're out of time i can't take questions. >> we're at 11:00. two very quick questions. i see a hand in the back. we'll two very quick questions. >> okay. >> thank you very much for attending and for providing us with this knowledge. i'm a first generation american. i was just living in mexico for the last two and a half years up until about a month ago. during the time that i was out there, you know, i learned more about how mexicans are part of the informal economy and kind of addressing my first generation

americanism, i wanted to ask as to how the importance or how do you see the importance of those who are naturalized citizens now residing in the states or even back in mexico now, their importance in civic engagement and politicking, if you will, just as important as those mexicans who are not part of the formal economy. >> is there another question before we close it? let's go to someone who hasn't asked a question yet. i see a hand back there. >> ambassador jacobson and also the panel, i'm curious your thoughts or how optimistic are you on some of the progress of the bilateral relationship as it relates to trade, security, immigration, energy reform under the current presidency given

that he's cited some issues. >> let me quickly take those two. i think you raise a really important point. let me take first the informal economy and i'm not going to try to compete with antonio who is a superb economist and has all the data, but we do know that some very high percentage of mexicans operate in the informal economy, whether it's over 50% or not. it's too high. too high for an ocd, too high for a country hoping to grow. that has to be tackled. it speaks to the fact that mexicans want to run their own business, want to work and the government makes it hard for them either because of bureaucracy or corruption. that has to be changed. rule of law affects that too. and your ability to operate your business free not only from that

bureaucratic pressure and paper work, but also, you know, you're going to end up getting squeezed by potentially the cartels or others whether you're formal or informal and better to have your paper work in order and protection of the state, et cetera, if the state is functioning as it should. i think there's an interesting thing about naturalized citizens. somebody told me that one town has a large u.s. population of retirees, there's 150 ngos. for a small city that's a lot of ngos. but it speaks well. many are retired and they want to join something or create something. but it also speaks to the fact that in the united states there are, you know, what we call civil society elsewhere in the world. civil society here -- we may be bowling alone, there may not be as much as there used to be. there's still a fair amount of activism around whatever you

believe in. environmental, women's rights, if it's daycare for children, whatever it is. that is still on the upswing in mexico. far better than it was when i first started to work on mexico 15 years ago. but it's a lower level of civil society, especially outside of mexico city than you would expect. intluks of naturflux of america now live there but as much as mexicans or mexican kids who grew up in the united states and go back to mexico and think why can't we do x, and why can we do y? and there they are used to be part of groups. that's a positive. certainly what we've seen in the united states from those who are mexican in the u.s. is once you get past a fear of undocumented

status, you certainly have a presence and a voice that is important and loud and increasing people running for office and caucuses, et cetera, contributing to the united states in a way that i think is absolutely beneficial. the other question was about optimistic on 900 different subjects. i can't touch all of them. i will say i'm an optimist. i am an optimist over the long run. we're in for some bumpy times in the short term. but i'm not a catastrophist. i don't think any of the candidates running would be absolutely sort of, you know, i don't have a chicken little attitude that the sky is falling on any of them. part of that, honestly we have to see what ends up being the governing program. there are things about it that i think are very worrisome.

there are other things that have said that seem reassuring. i think a mandate will be important because the most difficult thing to come out of these elections is if they were so close that there was difficulty in accepting the results. >> thank you, roberta. great honor to have you here. i want to turn to doris to close. but thank you, rockberta. [ applause ] well, this book s two countries as we've heard. it also spans two institutions. this is work that began when andrew was at the wilson center. it was completed as he became president of npi. and so i want to close with thanking the wilson center, duncan for being here with us to

partner on this event. it's just another great example of how we have had a relationship long standing over the years that has been very, very productive. broadly and exact example of andrew and andrew's work transitioning. i want to also thank wilson for its parenting. its parenting of andrew -- [ laughter ] -- now been delivered to us. [ laughter ] in the form of a very, very energetic and accomplished new president. we're very, very pleased and we're very, very pleased and, therefore, say congratulations to you, andrew, for this very fine contribution as a real take off in your presidency here of our institution. and i also have to really say thank you to this incredibly

stellar lineup of people that andrew has pulled together for this launch event. i mean think of what it is that you've all heard this morning. for those of us who are involved, and i want to absolutely include jim jones in this, it is so wonderful to see you, jim. this is an incredible reunion. i mean our lives and our careers, all of us, have interconnected and taken different forms and been in different institutional settings for decades. it's extraordinary. and it's all come together here in this extraordinary conversation that's taken place this morning. and so thank all of you for being part of it and by extension for this audience in being here, also the audience that's on live stream. if you are looking for any more resources on any of these kinds of issues, particularly the migration related issues, go to

our website, www.migration.org. continue the conversation, come forward and for certain pick up a copy of the book in the lobby and i'm sure andrew will be happy to sign it. thanks for being with us. [ applause ] president trump is headed to south carolina this afternoon to campaign for governor henry mcmaster ahead of tomorrow's primary in that state. we'll take you live to west columbia, south carolina at 7:00 p.m. eastern to watch the president's event. several members of president trump's cabinet will be on capitol hill this week testifying before congress. tomorrow health and human

servi services secretary alex azar will be questioned on the separation of migrant children from their families along the u.s.-mexico border. live coverage of that hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. here on c-span 3. wednesday housing and urban development secretary ben carson was the at an oversight hearing by the house financial services committee, live coverage starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. then wednesday afternoon president trump's pick to head the veterans affairs department robert wilke will testify. live coverage starts at 2:30 p.m. on c-span 3 and all of those hearings will be available online at c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. the c-span bus is traveling across the country on our 50 capitals tour. the bus is on its 38th stop in

juneau, alaska asking folks what's the most important issue? >> we're in the middle of a budget crisis. we're used to having a lot of oil money come in and as a result of lower oil prices, we aren't getting that revenue that we're used to, so there are other revenue streams that need to happen, but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast. i think there's political reasons why people are afraid or worried about implementing taxes, but without additional revenue coming in, the alaskans are facing a lot of crisis. one crisis is opioid. the more the economy is going down, people are not happy and they end up getting destitute and turn to self-medicating. >> the most important issue is

child hunger and poverty. we were at child 40%, food security in the state. we went down. now we're going way back up. we have to stop giving all our money to the oil companies and start spending it on children for the future. >> one of our big issues here in the state is the tourism industry. it's a huge chunk of our economy and it's growing by leaps and bounds. we're very concerned about the ability to promote the state at a nationwide level, especially since tourism and visitor industry is such a bright spot in our economy. >> as far as i can see from what -- i've been here a week in alaska, and one of the big social service issues i see here in alaska is homelessness and trying combat it is a real issue with the city since a lot of them aren't actively seeking help but the ones that are seem

to be moving from place to place looking for the different type aid they can get. seems like one of the big issues is that homelessness and how we can combat it and fight it here in this state. >> i am the executive director of the alaskan school administrators. the most important being in alaska is to get a long term sustainable fiscal plan in our consistent which means ongoing revenue outside of our nonrenewable sources. we have to stabilize education across the state. our educators need to feel funding which is a constitutional duty in alaska so they with stabilize their schools and what's most important for all of us is educate our students. be sure to join us july 21st

and 22nd when we feature our visit to alaska. watch alaska weekend on c-span, c-span.org and listen on the free c-span radio app. the cato institute examined congress's war powers. they talked about presidential war making powers. the 2001 authorization for the use of military force. and several new congressional war authorization proposals. this hour long event was held at the raburn house office building on capitol hill. good afternoon, everyone. thank you for joining us today for our capitol hill briefing titled recapturing congress' war powers, repeal don't replace, 2001