secretary testifies before the house education and workforce committee about his agency's policies and priorities. at two: 30 p.m., rand paul leads the senate homeland security subcommittee hearing on the financial impact and constitutional implications of u.s. military action under the existing authorization for use of military force. >> on wednesday at 8:00 p.m. memorialn c-span2, the service marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of robert f kennedy from arlington national cemetery. featured speakers include family, friends, members of congress, and former president bill clinton. watch the rfk 50th memorial service at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. evolvinglook at the

relationship between the u.s. and mexico. the wilson center's mexico institute and migration policy institute cohosted an event with current and former officials from both countries. topics included the impact of nash debt -- nafta and what they described as understanding more of the positive productive aspects of the relationship. this is just over two hours. >> good morning, everybody. >> good morning. buenos dias. thank you for

those who are joining us by livestream, who are here today, anybody joining us from c-span as well, thank you for being with us. it is an immense honor to welcome you. for those of you who have not been here before, we are an organization that studies the movement of people worldwide, which means one of the things we do research, evidence-based research, authoritative research , we g people together for dialogue, training, lear opportunities,ot of red medic problem solving around issues of immigration and immigrant integration policy around the world. we work in the united states, and we have offices in europe. we also have worked around the world and we spent a lot of time working with colleagues in mexico and central america on regional migration issues. today's discussion fits in with things we do at mpi, and it fits well with the woodrow wilson center. thank you to the wilson center and its mexico institute for co-sponsoring and organizing today's events.

thank you to our colleagues, and it's a great pressure -- a great pleasure to work with duncan again. a great partnership that carries on. talk about the forces driving mexico and the united states together. we are also talking more broadly about the u.s.-mexico lationship, going beyond the book, talking about the relationship itself. you will hear from distinguished panelists in a moment, mexicans and americans, even someone from relationship.king about and how deep it is. when i started to write this book, depending on whether you ask my family, whether i started 10 or two years ago, it was an idea 10 years ago. there were various drafts floating around. it was intensely wrien in e st years. the idea was trying to tell the story of how to countries,

mexico and the united states, had become so deeply integrated and interrelated in ways that we often miss. trulyw this has become a intimate relationship. the introductory chapter is called intimate strangers, and the notion that we are intimately enged in the -- with each other in ways that we often don't see and we don't have tools to understand. i wanted to t, and i nttell it through stories, because a lot of us have spent a lot of time trying to tell the story through data and analysis, but also telling it for the human story. this is a book of stories. that is how i describe the book, a book of stories backed up by analysis and data, but largely trying to e hulet thn stories speak. on inthings have gone this relationship. one is economics. we have become economically intertwined in ways that we weren't 20, 30 years ago. that is significant and phenomenal and as we will talk about, we don't just create

things together. we talk about nta as a trade agreement but it is about manufacturing things together. it is about actually having a ammon, becoming a, debt -- common economic platform in the global economy. that is a huge shift in the last 20 or 30 years ago. also, migration has been this relationship. more than one in 10 americans is of mexican descent. from one, 2, 3, four generations, recent migration. one in 10 he pulled born in mexico lives in the united states. there are about 12 million mexico born people in the united states. and there are almost a million americans living in mexico. it is 740,000 of you believe the mexican census. it is a large number of people. some of them are of mexican descent. some of them had no connection

with mexico, no heritage connection before they moved. it is a diverse group, a group that has reshaped mexican theety in new ways and united states in new ways. finally, we are neighbors. that is something that will not change. whether we love eachther or we fight with each other, we will continue to be neighbors. our we talk about neighborhoods where you can get up and move, it might be costly but you could move, we can't barring a gigantic asteroid that hits the earth emma we will be neighbors for a really longtime time. that has made a huge difference. on the t of the book is, border communities deal with each other in a much different way than people further out, and i love a lot of the cooperation, the changes happening in the region where people have to deal with each other now. i know we will talk about this sum, as well. it comes together at the border, people actually have to deal with each other and the border has moved up. the border was once around

tijuana. it is also ireingly, los angeles and phoenix and dallas. chicago is in some ways a border city. these are things that have moved out because it is not just the physical border, but the linkages that go on. and those are sometimes cultural,il sometes economic. the stories of the book run the gamut, and they go from dry topics like manufacturing, ere is t trade, many fracturing come all of that stuff. mexican investment in the united stat, turning around small towns in the united states. it goes to sports and food. food is probably the place where we have the closest interaction with each other. four of the last five oscar-winning directors are mexican. happened between our film industries that is unique. it is a sty about three people who are friends, incredible filmmakers, but it turns out

when you did beneath that, there is a huge connection between the mexican and u.s. film industries. it is about border cooperation, security cooperation. a couple chapters look at plic security. deep, regardless of wt happens at a political level between the countries, and lots of mistakes have been made, the degree of trust that has grown between people on the front police officers, intelligence officers, non-government advocates. we are dealing with each other across the border in new ways. we are at a moment where there is lots of negative rhetoric about the u.s.-xico relationship. a few of us were talking, is this relationship coming apart or coming together? it is hard to tell. live in thewho moment, we tend to live in the moment of politics. i suspect some of you outside washington watching this conversation have the benefit of a longer view. we tend to get drawn into the latest tweet or statement from a

political cande or government leader. the short-term things will be rocky. we know that. on there many things e. this is a complicated lationship. the integration that has been going on, i argue in the book, isthis book, overall beneficial for the united states. it is in our best interest to enga mexicit inot always easy and not always without problems. there are real problems that happen along the way as the two countries engage with each other. we are evaluating, both countries are questioning assumptions. it will be a bumpy road for a while. if you look at the long-term, am coned and ink of t othereople here on our panel are asell, and the long-term, you're going to find a relationship that will grow closer with or without politicians and the politicians will come along because in the end, the larger forces in , culturalhe social

forces are much stronger than the political winds we are seeing. thank you for being here. let me introduce dr. woods, the director of the mexico institute. think michelle and lisa and the wilson centernd communications team for all duncanork and here is would. -- wood. [applause] the invitations to participate you could not refuse. mpi, and say thanks to the wilson center to everybody who has put this together but most of all, a quick recognition andrew. i like to call him the godfather of mexican studies. 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 connection which means i am indebted for you for two incomes. in the spirit of being the godfather of something and the hardest working man in mexican studies, he not only writes books, he works hard at multiple things. he travels, he has babies, while doing all of this, kind of an amazing thing that one could reproduce at the same time you are doing productive in so many other areas. i said when do you find the time to write books and he said, well, i get it -- up at 4:00 and get ready and i start writing at five and come into the office. that is dedicated. at 5:00 i am still firmly in the not of morpheus and i do

think about writing until 9:00 when i get to the office. his career is sethingot just be admired but something many of us share and that is his passion. many would share the fact he had lended his life with hareer. his dedication to mexican studies matches his dedication to mexico and his life that he has lived on both sides of the border. room sureat -- this that. i would say. we feel the successes and failures o the bilateral relationship. not just that week write about them, we opine about them, but we feel them. we feel the ups and downs and especially the current crisis that we are going through. term crisis that lately. i do firmly believe that. ie book itself, sometimes colleague sends you a book and it is an obligation. i will read this because it is a colleague and i should be a formed crash in. the book is terrific.

as i said in my facook review, a cracking good read. one of those you want to keep reading. that is not always the case with books that come out o think tanks as all of us are painfully aware in this room. it is about human aspect of policy. what andrew has managed to do is to highlight how all of this highfalutin stuff that we talk about in washington and mexico city and other parts of the continent, how that plays down .o the human level it is about as andrew has said, living the relationship intimately. we are intimately involved in that. what andrew recognized was that despite all 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 have said this many times over the years area who is going to write the story come a who is going to tell the story that gets her two human beings so

they begin to understand? thefore there was a need for this book. it is not just a nice book we alan joyce reading. there was a need for this book, i would argue. although it is not going to have an immediate impact on policy right now, the long game is what we are playing. and the long game mea we have to change hearts and minds. andrews reference to the stories andlving film and sports food are critical. i would love to see the movie deal at some point. when that be great if we could tell the story oral latish i sense. analysis is vital when we come study the bilateral relationship and andrew has managed to translate that analysis and put it into a form which would -- is much more accessible for the lay public. two things before i close. it, -- read it, it is not just some thing you buy an put on your shelf.

-- and put on your shelf. read this one. get through it, it is a terrific read. the second one is that what andrew has managed to do is to scratch the surface of the stories that mexico and the u.s. and mexicans and americans in all of us other crazy people, europeans, brits, whatever we ar not sure anymore, that live in this space. there are so many other stories that are out there and the stories will continue to come in the future. in many ways, i would say the s as an opportunity, a motivation for the rest of us to tell more stories. those stories are going to be a differki story for the next couple of years. we are going to see stories which are less positive. we have to remember the stories in this book and keep looking for those positive stories. for havingery much me here. congratulations. to someone that i consider to be my brother.

thank you very much for including us in this project. ambassadorintroduce w a distinguished diplomat. it is an incredibly busy time for everyone at the mexican embassy. ssador in bolivia, he is -- experience inive u.s. consulates, he was director general for sre, director of relations between the u.s. and canada and right now, he is dcm nwashin.exican embas ul for your presence. the microphone is yours. [applaus

>> good morning to everyone. it is a privilege to speak before so ma youngeople and bere such a distinguished beforee and speaking people that have engaged in the u.s.-mexico relationship like the ambassador and professor jacobson. antonio, duncan and andrew, the ambassador asked me to convey his congratulations for this magnificent book. book is fairly well documented. it reaches the knowledge and understanding of the complex and often misunderstood bilateral

relations between mexico and the u.s. your book is a timely reminder that our countries are bound by s and their daily interactions and exchanges. it is to recognize that ties .row strongery osday both countries grow stronger and closer together and more interdependent. mexico in the u.s. show a very -- sherry long land border and a deep border region. social, religious, linguistic, and family ties have be established for more than 150 years. two characteristics have defined these exchan -- their strength andntensity reached the highest magnitude at the border and graduallyl

decreased him as we move away from the border. wean agree with andrew that this is changing. the integration of our society is not exclusive. are intense interactions and incans and americans all kinds of activities. two -- i saw [indiscernible] our peoples and our societies. in this sense, governments are not the main drivers of our integration phenomenon. set as it may sound, our capitals involvement is marginal. dvernmentsto think we -- we developed bilateral relationships when in r, is the people who created it. we and government are always delayed in developing

inn licies. the thing we do best is adjusting our rules and regulations to respond to the integration trends that are already occurring. what both governments have done mostly is develop the framework to organize this powerful and perman integration forces. we must understand that no country can isolate from others and much less so if isolationism tries to conin forces [indiscernible] toward its neighbors. the strongest forces are social and economic, not political. forces like families, production tourism, culturalanges, [indiscernible] by-dimensional flows. a good example of how our governments are facilitating the integration of our countries is corporation -- cooperation in our shared border. it has been enhanced to make it more secure to facilitate the

lawful movement of people and groups, and to join efforts in confronting unlones. our governments do not create the flows of people in groups. we make them easier to happen in a secure and efficient manner. adjustments,ation the governments of u.s. and mexico have facilita integration of our societies by building a tighter interconnection of our financial and by easing the development of better communications to the extent tween them is considered a local call. both countries are led to benefit from their respective energy and oil resources. on the movement of people, it is important to mention that there has been aubstantial change in migratory flows. mexican migration transition from a seasonal flow to a reverse flow by which mexicans are returning to mexico while

americans are migrating to mexico. the flow is comprised less spina -- mexican nationals and more by central americans. we must remember that joint efforts and a high level of cooperation, we have been able to avoid terrorists cros our border. i am certain that anoth element of our countries coming closer together is the deeper understanding of our shared interests. in terms of security, we will continue moving away from finger-pointing at each other commonelopin more strategies. mexico and the u.s. are bound to remain together. our ties will cont growi. as ambassador gutierrez says, a strong and 60 -- successful mexico is in the interest of the u.s. just as a strong and

successful u.s. is in the best interest of mexico. thank you for your contribution. [applause] >> thank you. that was very compelling and we appreciate that. please convey our greetings to youyone and is an honor joined us today. we will turn to our panel. i have three distinguished panelists. before i introduce them, let me say that we have questions and answers in a bid for the panel. you can tweet questions at us discuss if you want to tweet about this event emailou can a male -- questions. you're welcome to tweet from the audience as well. phenomenal handle.

i will introduce all three, and we will do this as a question roundtable rather than presentations. the honorable carla hills. of hills andent company. she is a former u.s. trade representative. she is the one who negotiated the original nafta agreement. it wonder who negotiated the worst agreement ever. she d elatnships at the time when we had the greatest, nafta is the signature agreement but there was an enormous effervescence of commercial relationships at the end of the cold war. inignature moment of change u.s. trade policy. she also served as secretary of housing and urban development, the council onrs foreign relations and has

innumerable titles we could add here. thank you for making time to be here with us today. the honorable alan berson is the former assistant secretary for policy and the depent of homeland security and the commissioner for customs and border protection. i met him when i was a grad student. -- he the u.s. attorney was the u.s. attorney for the southern district of california. he has done quite a feings in between that and homeland security, including being the head of the public schools in san diego. san diego unified. the secretary of education of the state of california, which is an animus position. he has always had a special commitment to his work globally my and he has worked statewide and locally and spans from local government to global concerns and has had an interest in how the u.s. and mexico can work

together and how this comes together at the border. and antonio joins us from the senior vice president of the albright stonebridge group. also a visiting professor at the edmund walsh school. many of you know him, he was the minister counselor for economic affairs. remember hisill academic life. we met his grad students. we were both grad students together. we taught together at the same time for peter smith many years ,go, a distinguished professor we we his teaching assistants. before he got into his current career, he was one of mexico's most published and best respected scholars of trade. and not only trade with the u.s. but trade with brazil, trade with europe, trade with asia, and published extensively, he had been in nafta negotiations.

>> it was a great agreement. >> he was on that side. gun into academia and published about this. he did a lot of the cnon on mexican scholarship. and mod into working in government and the private sector. great to have all three of you here. open up by asking carla, back in the early 1990's, it would have been hard to imagine where we are today. forget the political moment. how much trade there is going on between mexico, the u.s., and canada. ?hat difference has nafta made as you sat down and negotiated it, this wasbout our competitiveness. what difference did nafta make? carla: nafta made and a difference. let me start by saying that

there is so much information floating about between our governments, our people, if you walk outside the doors of this institute and ask the first 10 people you meet, what do you think about the north american free tradeat do you think about the bilateral relationship with mexico, or how do you think that the trio, canada, mexico, and the u.s., how do they work together? probably you would get, it does not matter. i does matter, and it matters hugely. has written a book that i have read, and you cannot puit down. he takes the fact that we are going to talk about and he translates them into a story, a human story. something that you want to read that chapter to see what happened to that family that went in this place that was

having these problems. thechange did occur in early 1990's, and mexico, president salinas wanted to open the market. it was highly restricted. they had gone through a very difficult decade of the 1980's. president bush, senior or a much wanted to open a market -- and very much wanted to open a market. -- we produced 1% of the -- 20% of the output. he bied we cod get marshaled together with les complex rules, it would make a difference and it truly has. when you think of the differenceth the nafta made, of $19have a market

billion, 490 million consumers, and it did not occur before. weliminated all the restrictions on industrial goods , most of the agricultural goods, and we created rules to protect intellectual prorty, rules to protect investment, and rules that if we had a dispute, as you do in families, that we had a mechanism for resolving those disputes. trade explodedal . x times what it was then. we have 14 million jobs that are nn o trade. destinations,port exportone, canada,

destination number two, mexico. we sell more to mexico than we sell to all of latin america. we sell more to mexico then 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, our small and medium-size businesses, and for them to ship across borders as they do today, it makes a difference. our -- out ofe of nine jobs is connected to tourism. tourism has blossomed with mexico. and with canada, too. and so we want to hold onto these issues. these are just the economics. i think in terms of political and working in the global arena,

having two neighbors friendly, two oceans,uth, east and west, we are so blessed . you look around the world, and there is friction between the next-door neighbor and the nation you are speaking of. wee, we have a family, and are working together. we share investments, tourism, trade, and it is something we need to hold on to. wewe are to hold onto it, 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 has made north america and the united states has gotten

the dividend of it, the most competitive region in the world. you want to put -- caught off those pipelines, you want to cut off the imports from mexico when productsntermediate that make your products globally competitive? you are making a big mistake. everything we import as u.s. content, it tells you how interconnected we are. i would say to everyone listen ing to this program and reading this book, get o in march to keep our partnership with our southern and northern neighbors strong and vibrant and lifelong. [applause] >> we will come back to you on a moment because that was mentally compelling.

let me turn to alan burson. we will talk about an article you wrote in "the washington post" on howhale migration. taking advantage of what carla was talking about, how we have these extensive flows happening across the border, one of the things you were deeply involved in through the years and this started in the 1990's. i remember reading an article maybeote, 2000, 2001, 19.you left the u.s. attorney ad you wrote about this before it even happened. in the last 15 or 20 years, we moved toward managing the border in a different way, not thinking of it just is a line but in terms of secure flows. how did that change question mark we have gone from managing -- tell us country what changed here. carla's calling this a family, thank you as

duncan and the abbasid did for writing family history. what is remarkable about this book is it islways good to be in a place where you are supposed to teach when you end up learning and listening to the ambassador and to duncan and carla, it reminds me, it has taught me why this book is so extraordinary and so important for everyone to read. i always look at the data and i listen to the rhetoric. years, i have not been able to figure out how the facts on the ground are so different fromthe perceptions, and the political rhetoric. it is because, in fact, we do not know the stories. humannot know the dimensions of this. in fact, we get data, and the only anecdotes we get, and this is not a criticism of journalism, journalism is always going to turn to the dangerous and the crisis am a the only anecdotes we get our bad stories. we have never actually, until my

friend andrew has taken on task and the analogy and the --parison to the tocqueville thequeville, these are positive stories, what makes the border, what makes the family. because of the 19th century war, la linea, the line east to west that separated the two countries was the key to the relationship. injury, post mexicans never forgot the treaty of guadalupe kildall go -- hi dalgo resulted in a loss of mexican territory and the insult is that americans never knew it. we had a line in which sovereignty was asserted vigorously and aggressively by the mexican government, it was

only at the line that the countries were genuinely equal. you could not cross that line. that is what andrew first saw and i someone we both arrived about the same time at the u.s.-mexican border in the 1990's. what is so remarkable is this is not a history that andrew has written. heas psent at the creation. he has watched this involves. it was about -- this evolved. it was about the line and it was about being are pointing, as the ambassador indicated. we were friendly, after all, after the war, we were technically demilitarized, but there was not a lot of trust, not a lot of confidence, and the result everything was at arms length. mexican commentators would point

to immigration and say, every mexican has the right to leave mexico. u.s. official would say, but it is illegal to cross the line when you do not have a visa to do so. narcotics, why can't you mexicans control the narcotics in your country with the quarterly hh cael and gang.ellano felix mexicans would say if you americans did not consume drugs the way you do we would not have the problem. the guns coming south are doing enormous damage to our people. it is all the way down the line. every issue, particularly where thessues, occasion for finger-pointing. wh happened as a result of mas que lahey went linea. of people, goods,

and ideas counted more than the line east and west. we respected sovereignty, but it was the flows and interactions that were so well chronicled in banishing frontiers that took precedence over laea totally tiednger to what happened at the line and we could start to explore the relationships. that happened in security, and we can look at that later in the context of particularly migration. >> tell us about the border bridge. that is the subject of chapter one. engaged indeeply this. it is one of many things that happened at the border. it is such a fascinating visual matter. more about the bridge to the tijuana airport. >> is my hope wife has said, i

have problems holding onto jobs. was the chairman of the san diego airport. those of you who have flown into san diego know that it is a single runway and it is bounded harbor, by the marine corps training base, neither of which are going to move. you have the busiest single runway airport in the world. was, where do you move harbor, byfor many years, 50 yn diego debated where the airport should be. should it stay downtown or should we move it out to miramar air force base? in 2006 during the iraq war, there was a vote taken. marines did not want to give up miramar. so that the decision was taken, and ias fortunate enough to -- involved with 46 jordache

equity six jurisdictions. -- 46 jurisdictions. they came up with a $42 billion plan to build out the gates. someone asked and said, what are you going to do when you run out of capacity at this airfield runway?ingle ight eisenhower, president eisenhower said when you cannot solve a problem, make it bigger. so, we made the problem bigger because 15 or 60 miles of san diego -- from san diego airport is tijuana. it has the capacity for several runways are little to the border. that is what started the process of building the bridge across the fence.

and i thinkn years, there are a lot of fathers and motherofhiidea. the only credit i give to myself was that i was the forest gump managed tomp and be the director of [inaudible] so everyone who ed to kill it had to go through alan berson. this is something we need to do. for those of you who have experienced it, i urge you to do that. it is completely -- has completely changed their traffic patterns in ways that were unanticipated. createdve -- it possibilities of movement. people from ex igo city who do not want to fly through dallas and houston to fly to the west coast can fly into san diego and fly up the coast. we have 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 were the san diego airport. the tijuana airport became san diego's international airport. by using creative public-private ventures and a lot of things i was able to get through. something that did not cost taxpayers but solved the incredibly needed problem. in brought us together unique ways. if you want a symbol of where the relationship is going, not because it is the mostor ing that has happened, i would put it in the top 10 or in unique ways. 15 one of the most important. it is one of the most visual, saying that bridge and realizing it was not driven by ideology, it was driven by too countries regions solving a problem. i have a quote from the mayor of san diego who is a republican in

the book where he says do not talk about two cities, we talk about a single metro region. san diego county and tijuana and the surrounding areas thinking of each other as a metro region that is stronger together. they can compete with l.a. and san francisco. if you think about them as a metro region, it is up there is one of the top, one of the top of the top eight. will talk about immigration in a moment. talk about mexican investment in the u.s. one of the more unusual stories we have seen. we knew that nafta would unleash investment. it is what the mexican government in the middle of a stagnate economy, they wanted to generate investment in mexico. there was a lot of mexican -- american investment in mexico.

one of the last -- one of the untold stories, we have seen a lot of mexican investment in the u.s. starts in stories hazleton, pennsylvania which was the epicenr of t anti- immigration debate. it has a great future but it is four mexicanas now owned factories in and around the city. being theent from debate around immigration to being the providers of jobs for people in the city and this has happened in small towns. that is something none of us predicted. >> that is right. chapter 11 was negotiated to protect u.s. investment. there was no such provision in canada -- the canada-u.s. agreement. also in the u.s. and in this book, you get a lot of great examples, i noted down a couple

of names. [reading names] a lot of you do not know what these companies do. you will have to read the book. know thomas english muffins or sara lee. mexican companies and they are creating jobs in the u.s. one investment that i think shows the potential of nafta and the pitfalls of the measures that have been taken as we speak. there is a company called to-continental mail close arkansas. it was bought by a mexican steel company. 80 to 85% of the

mail market was comprised of imports mostly from china. thecontinental mail was largest remaining u.s. producer, and thanks to the purchase of midcontinent, not only did the company survived, but it thrived. rkers.bled the amoun it is one of the major mail producers in the u.s.and how did they do that? it is mexican investment in the u.s. but also, a cross-border supply chain. you need steel input from mexico being sent to mimssouri it intols and keep manufacturing in the u.s. this was not a zero-sum game. without mexico, it would be a zero am a ok? -- zero, ok? this would be a zero. imposed onew tariff

aluminum and steel, who knows companiesuture of like that who survive because of the trade and investment links with mexico. it is important to see that. it is investment and trade. -- if theycs are are disrupted, this brings home why trade and investment between mexico and the u.s. are good. i wanted to congratulate and are on doing this. this is something i was not able to do at the mexican embassy. i used to ask. a number of u.s. companies, help me tell the story about your investment in mexicowhy is it positive for your bottom line, for employment in the u.s., etc. question mark 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, andharing stoes i needed to say that. i will mention to other examples that caught my attention. one of them has to do with north dakota. this is not a border story. more along the northern border. --y republican state senator the republican state senator from north dakota, 30% of edible teens are bought by mexico. mexico. are bought by what would happen if there is a tit-for-tat that affects agricultural trade? is bank to nafta that the u.s. can export agricultural products to k a go, including from north dakota. this is not a border issue. but these tit-for-tat tariffs,

wto tariffs can go away. gracias, after. -- nafta. this is an aside. who is buying inedible beans? story abouther energy interdependence. mexico, the u.s., and canada had noth [indiscernible] but we have to work together to take advantage and andrew provides a great example to go back, he also studied at san diego. mountainous region between tijuana and mexicali. places a great way, rate to have with -- great place to have with energy. you put turbines where the wind is.

you cannot have a buy american provision. you go where the wind is. a u.s. compa, sempra energy invested iwind termites -- turbines to provide energy. i think there is another great example about how we can work together and this is thinking about the future. with all due respect, is is t about coal. beis looking at how jobs can created, not how it can be created with industries of the past. we have to think about what the with an optimistic note, let's go back to hazleton. andrew and i taught a course on u.s.-mexican relations. you also -- always start with hazleton.

some back of the envelope math. the population is 25,000. the population of the u.s. is 270 -- 237 million. stories to ,000 told. i think the story is very powerful. fromentioned joe maddon the cubs. you have to read this to understand what joe maddon from the cubs has to do with mexico-u.s. relations. -- lueff lynne now we have to raise thear. because im optimistic difference,o make a

and it want to congratulate you, andrew. you have been mixing passion with knowledge, with dedication. , think we need more of that and to be frank, the opposite of that is when we mix misinformation with passion. that can leadg results. s andrew and i am sure that your book will make a very big difference. felicidades. >> thank you. [applause] >> let more quick round and we will open up to questions and comments. i want to recognize ambassador jim jones. jacobson -- ambassador jacobson. she just stepped down as ambassador. mexico and are strong leadership. also great to have you here. let me pause on antonio's

intervention. we talked about the auto industry. it features big in the book as well. as you -- when you came in, the debate had always been about what is goto happen to the u.s. auto industry question mark the biggest, most prominent topic was the notion that the u.s. auto industry was going down and auto imports would eat her lunch. german and korean and a italian cars would flood the market. that did not happen. find an imported car these days. what happened with the auto industry? there is a big story about the inteiorcne. >> there's the benefits of opening the markets. today, our supchetween the northern and southern neighbors in the auto industry are very tight. about 14 million jobs that are connected with our we cutchains, so wif

those off, we are going to be really injured in the u.s. this did not happen before. first of all, mexico was not purchasing that many product. by becoming efficient a getting the very best geographically located post-geographic location of that widget you needed to make your product competitive, made our auto industry take off. we do have a problem in the fact that we are producing 40% more with fewer workers because of automation. but that is a domestic issue. we need to have a program thater using their hands on the manufacturing floor. but are 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 at we are taking this action of 1962the 32 statute called to protect our national security. it is hard for me to see how we e injured on steel and aluminum and having interactions with our northern and southern neighbors who are two of our largest suppliers, and saw that supply is finished steel. we do not make it in the u.s., but we will put a tariff on it. that will make it tough for some of our industries to be competitive. the defense department has said publicly, we do not use much metal, probably 2% or 3%.

where more worried about the tariffs -- we are mwo about tariffs that are applied against our closest allies. what we need to do is to maintain our relationship with our closest allies, focus on the problems that we see with respect to oversupply,oin hands with our closest allies, -- confront the problem directly, and that wou be talking to china about el, cement, andll 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 an economic need. industrial, is

industrial production and the u.s. tied with mexico and canada? >> absolel aboutit possible to think production without thinking [indiscernible] >> so many lines of industrial production are, you can see it in what we import. 25% of what we import from canada is u.s. content. 40% of a we import from mexico is -- of what we import from mexico is content. 2% with japan, 4% with china. other words, we are shipping back and forth across the border on so many this, auto being number one where you make one of the problems, put it on, ship it back, you go across the southern border in the auto section about five times, on average.

it is amazing. we will behat off, far less competitive locally. >> that is one of the things that is missing in this debate is howuc cannot turn the clock back. we are integrated across the do, when wehat we do damage to our relationship with the neighbors, it terms out -- it turns out we do damage to ourselves. the bullet ricochets in ourselves, something you do not want to do in migration policy. we would like to turn to the issue of immigration. you wrote an article in "the ew days ago.ost" a f since 2007, there are fairies -- very few mexicans crossing illegally. there are more mexicans returning to mexico and there

are a stable number in the u.s. the ncrossing has dropped dramatically. in we have seen a rise -- ntral americans coming in. this has led to cooperation and tensions in the relationship between mexico ahe u.s. howou have some ideas about this could be handled? it seems the tendency right now in washington is to push back on mexico and to say that mexico needs to fix this. you had some other ideas. terrific bit had a of advice, he said first get and then straight you can distort them as much as you like. that is what we have seen with the issue of migration. mexico has grown into the 13th largest economy in the world. it is no longer the descending country we have experienced over the last five or six decade.

it has become a transit company. -- country. affectingactors are central icans, particurly guatemala honduras, and el salvador. they are transiting through mexico. on the way to the southwest border. what we discovered early on in trying to deal with the migration issue, as doris meisner and janet reno led the effort on the u.s. side in the early 1990' was it was extraordinarily difficult to manage the borderline in terms of crossing and the repatriation try to do itif you without the cooperation of your neighbor. it has taken us 15, 20 years with the help of diplomats like jim jones and a in to build -- roberta jacobson. we began to jointly manage the migration issue at the border.

populism has always exploited the negative stories, the negative anecdotes to make immigration a hot button, and flamed issue in domestic politics of this country and ot. that is what we are seeing now with the talk of the wall or the declaration that we are going to prosecute every one of the people who comes across the federal, a criminal -- no court. we say in the as article, for a good sound bite, but it is not possible. the number of migrants apprehended in the last year crossing illegally, for the most part fceameric numbered over 300,000. you could not possibly prosecute every one of those people. we do not have enough federal courts, federal judges, federal marshals, provision officers, or detention space to do that.

that is a hollow idea that may have a short-term deterrent effect, although the initial data this month indicates it is slowed the flow of central americans. weeed to address downstream the 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 do not seem to be abmeth to co a copperheads of immigration reform. those are the two elements that have to be addressed, but while we are waiting for those, it seems that rather than talking of walls or talking about euro 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. mexico, in defense of its own

national security and public safety, has stopped 500,000 central amicand to cross into mexico on their way to the stes. imagine the impact on the southwest border if mexico was ,ot cooperating with our needs but doing it for their own rpospu driven by their o policy requirements. we need to strengthen our relationship with mexico, with regard to the responsibility and the comanagement of a migration problem that is continental in scope, and not just limited to la linea. flows from central america and in some cases, from around the world. the second is 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 for hearings. if we had crisp adjudications of migrant rights,would not see what we see today, which is, many people waiting for hearings, 2, 3, and for years, which leads not only to the building up of equities of people who then live here, developed jobs, have families, and then suddenly, we have a hearing and we are going to suddenly rip families apart. that makes it difficult. but looking at it from the other perspective. if i am in hazelton and suddenly, i have 16 new neighbors who are waiting for immigration court hearings and i wonder what is happening, you can imagine the kind of tensions that build a politically -- build up politically and that have occurred in this country. we need to strengthen our relationship with mexico. we need to strengthen our

immigration court system. we have to sp looking for the that simply does not exist wn it comes to a complex social issues such as migration. >> thank you. there is a deal in their and fixing our system in a way that is recognize and -- recognizes our immigration heritage and we enforcement regime and control the borders. we want to move toward that as well. >> one way of doing that is the third country agreement. it says if i am a central american, and i am driven out of my home by reason of fears for mexicodren's safety would be the place in which that asylum would be asserted. that would have some very beneficial effects for our

migration policy. it would discourage false asylum claims, and on the other hand, it would provide the refuge we need to provide for people who are genuinely in danger of persecution in their home countries. not neither is completely open borders nor sealed borders, we need the rule of law to govern at the border and in terms of dealing with the flows toward the border. we cannot do it without mexico. >> let me ask you one more question. you have been involved in raqqa and i do not talk about it much in the book. daca, and i do not talk about it much in the book. this is an issue that is an american issue that we need to deal with, but it does have bilateral effects. this is an issue in which 85% of americans 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 recommended by secretary napolitanoo omulga the daca regulations which was received and now upwards of 700,000 young mexicans who were brought to this country by their parents, wnd grew up here and no know know what the country the right to remain here and renew every two years. even president trump says he is in favor of the daca and yet, he has sent to 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 doctor visit -- daca regulations were rescinded by the trp administration was a legal. as a result of that, the deportation of the docket young people has been halted. daca young people has been halted. it will invariably go to the supreme court and we hope there is a legislative solution to because, while there may not be broad agreement on ny migration matters, 85% of the american people have spoken on behalf of these young people who have made an enormous contributions to our military, ourcational institutions, and to our communities. audience,we go to the i very quickly wanted to ask you about how mexicans are responding to the current moment. ofico has become a target

much of u.s. policy. it has become an object of the american president's attention. i actually say somewhere in the book, i know i have said this to weew of you, sometimes when talk about mexico, where notley really talking about mexico, but ourselves. we are not really talking about mexico, but ourselves. mexico is our struggle. sometimes we are talking about globalization. sometimes it is china. sometimes we feel like we're losing power in the world. sometimes, europe whether we can still compete. not all conversations about mexico are really conversations about mexico, some are really about ourselves. in mexico, when people hear these conversations, it does have their name and country attached to it. how are they responding? >> i would say they are responding in a very mature and

even headed and patient way. between the time when nafta was being negotiated and the president. i have the privilege of being a part of the nafta team. it was a pretty controversial issue back then. we were educated by saying that the u.s. took half of mexico in the mexico-american war. we call it not even a war. we have the national anthem. this was ourorew. i even had some strong dad, it is with my generational. very carefule about the u.s., they took half of -- i'm going to do nafta. it seems like the distant past, but now we see the u.s. as our ally, our friend, our friend our

bff. suddly our bff offends us. aughter] mexico -- mexicans are in shock. what happened? we are friends we have to get along. all of that, located history is in the past. we need to get along now more than ever. -- disbelief, misunderstanding. i think there is still distinction between the current u.s. administration and destination. it is important to keep those two issues separate. from a policy perspective, i think mexicans have been very coolheaded. as i was making my way here, i saw that the mexican federal register has just

published the tariff reprisal against the u.s. measured expected response. we are not being very aggressive. across say that the hope political affiliations, regions and age -- i joked a short time ago that the current u.s. president managed something that mexican president and the 30'sid unite mexicans. on naftahe same views and the wall, and to have positive and constructive relations with the u.s. well.ave noticed that as i've been very impressed with the evolution of -- this would be a moment to bring back the

altar nationalism of thet. it doesn't seem about as happened -- has happened. with that, let's go to the audience. if you are in the room, raise your hand. if you are not in the room and want to ask a question, you can tweet to us. #mpsdiscuss.ag >> i am a professor of law at texas a&m university. to hisck anecdote message, i was born in 1982. mexico in studying primary and secondary school, our public school books included nafta. it does include the war against the united states, that at the end of the chapter we were going to be a part of a north american region. we were raised to believe that

the u.s. and mexico were together. we are a generation raised under the perspective. i want to piggyback about it on the overreaction. there is a lot of push in mexico to reevaluate the relationship with the united states. to instruct the government to revise all the memorandums we have on u.s. government and migration issues. the panel to talk a little bit more on that relationship. understandingof by agencies and local governments and municipalities. the level of understanding that bureaucrats and agencies have with each other, i would like you to talk about that. >> we will take two or the questions -- three questions unencumbered to thpanel.

-- and then we will come back to the panel. is trying tor book get at the issue of identity in many ways. in some ways, at its core, but educate future generations this extraordinary relationship between mexico and the u.s., how is that identity involving? i want to be specific. in our coverage of the u.s. born children who are now ending up in different places, i tell the story of a nine-year-old who sees himself as neither of the u.s. or a mexican citizen. i want to know whether these new generations are going to in some way, change, alter the relationship very deeply, precisely in the way you have

described, this relationship as a family. i wondered if anybody has any thoughts about this identity issue on the panel. thank you. congratulations for the book. this is a o front question. how strong our mexican antibodies domestically against protectionism? readycond, is is mexico to be an open society for receiving asylum-seekers at this moment? violence has been very hard against any making refugee claims there. how is mexico to become a multicultural society? >> there was a hand up in the back as well.

i would like to turn attention to the nafta and side agreements. the beginning of my career, i worked with issues related to environment. of e 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 ic now, is that those who have not benefited from economic are raising their hand and saying what about us? what needs to be done going environment and labor issues? what might have been done 25 maybeago that would have not presented the kind of backlash that we are seeing, but maybe have mitigated it somewhat?

>> those are a great set of questions. let's go back to the panel. we will get one more in and then do another round if we have time. thank you very much. usually, when you think about innovation, you don't think about countries like mexico. you think in countries like maybe singapore, korea, i don't know, many others. we realized woman read your book, that there are important stories about innovation across the border. in yourion would be, interviews, what do you think are the best examples of

incorporation and innovation between our two countries? panel's go back to the and go in the same order. any of the questions you want to answer feel free to take them. weill try to get everyone among all the panelists. you don't have to answer everyone. the question that seemed most record to me the one about through thel iues north american free trade agreement. those were put in a side agreement. to get it passed through our ngss in 1993 of the clinto administration. in the past 25 years, we have moved on. i think there has been a greater appreciation of the fact that we need to work together on environmental issues. we have had the paris environmental accd, of course

the u.s. pulled out of that. that doesn't make the environment any less of a critical issue for mankind to work together. the side agreements could be p into the nafta. i strongly believe that the nafta provides a very good foundation for our ratnsp, 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, the gap. we had no rules to deal with intellectual property, which will protect investors to have a dispute settlement. when they finished the nafta, we had all those rules.

within four months of it taking effect, the 126 trade ministers came back to the table, finished the round to upgrade the gap, put in protections on intellectual property, investment services, all the things they copied from the nafta, including creating the wto. north america became a model for what the open market architecture should be like in a regional situation. we need to keep that. we need to modernize the nafta today. i strongly believe our technology has moved ahead. you did not have a cell phone in your pocket. you didn't tweet. we didn't sell services over the internet. we need to modernize the nafta, last century, but

moved to the 21st century and continue to be a model for the world. i think it is absolutely critical that we maintain and upgrade the agreement. address the memorandumof agreee capabilities of mexico regarding asylum. hundreds of memorandum agreements that hav memorialized patterns of interaction and ways of doing business. of those ways of doing busin and patterns of interaction don't disappear, in fact, they have superseded and many ways the memorandum agreement that initialized the interaction. migrants,xchange of

with the placement of mexican customs officers in laredo airport in texas, with customs and border protection officers, andfficers doing errands and ameran ports of entries, all of those interactions that were initially established thrgh memorandum of agreement continue. they will only be undone with a specific frank the people in charge of homeland security and other departments don't see the benefit of removing those interactions, and they will continue, notwithstanding the review of memorandum agreements on both sides. to the mexican asylum and refugee assistance is very small and

undelo we have developed an extensive refugee and asylum capacity and citizenship and immigration services. we didn't always have that. this is an occasion to start to build that capacity. the width of experience not only from u.s. agencies, but also worldgencies say to mexico, you are not a transit country and will shortly become a destination country with regard migration, and you have to have the capacity to deal with asylum and refugee claims. i think the mexican people have proclaimed their support for immigrant rights. we are at the beginning of a new era in migration.

it should be an occasion to build up that capacity. agreements, i would say that most of the actions that have to be taken are at the national level. for example, in the u.s., there is something called trade adjustment assistance. why can't that be proactive to make sure there is training for workers? why does it have to be trade related? why isn't it technology related? , and easy to blamera the worst agreement that happens to the u.s. you need to do a lot of things domestically. in terms of mexico cooperation, perhaps the ambassador will talk about this, but i think it will be great to have much more transfers between mexico and the u.s. mexican companies and u.s. so

that they understand business practices but alach other's cultures so there will be much more labor mobility. much more student mobility. much more than that. technically, one way to get stronger protection for environmental labor issues is to join the tpp. didn't do that. >> you are going to make me cry. >> the second way to address that is to make sure tre is strong dispute mnafta that coves commitments on trade and the environment. as far as i understand, the u.s. once a watered-down mechanism. i think that really won't cut it . that is all i have to say about that agreement. about the antiodies in mexico, i would say that they are pretty strong.

i would say that the u.s. received a vaccine in the 1930's. i don't know if the effects are wearg off. the vaccine is still working pretty well. about shift inks trade policy, they talk about trade diversification, not about having different markets rather than detection. in fact, in april last year, when it seed thapresident trump was about to formally start withdrawal procedure from the nafta, you didn't hear anybody in mexico saying what's take this opportunity -s happy to see a lot of former nafta critics that sa don't rid nafta. i think there is strong support for open trade, that there will be more of a focus on forging trade with latmerica. mexico did be -- become a part of modernizing agreements with

europe. .on't see any risk i don't think protection would be the solution for any of the challenges we face. think meco wilhave a more proactive -- i wouldn't call it industrial policy. close to lkseten government and business to make su theres a plt caha work in an open economy. on the assessment of the isateral relationship, it one of the world's most complex relationships. mexico can diversify trade links up to a limit. and i finished a paper examined mexico's trade religions -- relations. during several of those episodes, mexico has tried to diversified trade. you know what the success is?

pretty close to zero. the u.s. is always the main partner and always will be. mexico will become increasingly important for the u.s. , mexico will become the eighth largest economy. we just have to understand each other. we are not moving anywhere. >> that is what people should buy the book. >> let me answer a few of the questions quickly. then i'm going to introduce roberta jacobson. i seee of the questions, the one thing that was not mentioned is i think there is a lost opportunity and nafta to think about wages in mexico. they come up, they have come up in the economy. mexico has really good laws on paper that are not always followed in terms of labor. there is a missed opportunity in the u.s. proposal's simply to

is that a certain percentage not the answer, it is an exclusionary way. there are ways of building and protections that many mexicans would be enthusiastic to have in their. i think that is one of the questions that hasn't been touched on in the negotiations. there is a lot of iovion.i have a chapter in here , which was really fun to write because i did know nothing about it -- between innovation and mexico in the u.s. innovation goes on with the businesses and u.s. businesses in mexico. it is sort of this move from basic manufacturing. 25 years ago, mexico was a piece manufacturer for the global economy. you have this movement up the chain or mexico moves into advanced manufacturing. you see the beginning of mexican companies moving into things like the auto industry. there is no major mexican auto

company yet, but there are a lot of major mexican auto parts companies. there are a lot of mexican companies that have really moved up the value chain in signific ways. the fund chapter was about looking at tech innovation and hanging out with startups. guadalajara is considered mexico's silicon valley. see companieso moving into the space, getting anreally starting to expand. you see a lot more that could really take off. the country how in that has a lot of people not in the banking system, have you get people into the baking system in creative ways? that is the kind of think you can take to central america and africa.t asia and

the betting on these companies is that they will expand not just to mexico, but other parts of the world. on two questions of identity and we have another question from gretchen from a very respected group in mexico wh asked specifically about third-party agreements. allen for i applaud puttg the table. it is good to have on the table because mexico should be thinking about how it bngs up a silent procedures to international procedures and how it develops the capacity. having this conversation is very healthy. we could see somewhere in the future where there would be mutual safe party agreements between the u.s. and canada, and people would apply. the first country they come into, but there is no capacity right now, with no disrespect to mexico, but simply the capacity

has not been developed yet to be able to do this in a way that would fair to central american migrants moving to mexico. it is a good conversation to have on the table. we are a distance away and politically, at this moment, where there are more recriminations in one ction than another. if i were the mexican government, it would be very hard to get into this sort of complex negotiation. think that is the reality of where it is. it is not going to proceed probably because the political moment is there. it probably shouldn't proceed yet either because the capacity is not there. it is a healthy conversation to start. mexico has not been a multinational -- multiethnic country before. other than with indigenous people who havessertetheir identity within the mexican nation. that was a debate that started in the late 1980's and early 1990's. with peoplenificant

of african descent in mexico. if you have one million or so , butcans living there nonetheless born and initially raised in the u.s. you have more and more central americans staying in mexico. you have migration through because of economic ties and globalization. i think this questn of being a multinational country is going to start. how can you begin to do with diversity in a country that has not always thought about that as a calling card? i know roberta spent some time on this -- think this scinatingto be a fas discussion. one ofhereat discussions is from david who is the bureau chief for the wall street journal, born and raised in mexico from american parents. he compares what it was like growing up as a mexican born american living in mexico and how it is now raising his own children. how much mexico has changed, at

least mexico city to be able to raise his children is proud mexicans even though they have americ and british heritage and how much easier it is today. i think that is a pending the suppression -- discussion. going to make a huge difference. identity is going to make a huge difference over time. we are seeing it with younger mexicans. our first speaker said this as well. younger xicansave grown up -th this notion of the council of global affairs did some polling to look at how americans see mexico. they broke it out the ages. what is very clear is that

younger americans are much more comfortable with mexico as they are with immigration more they grew up also with mexico being part of their life and immigration being part of their life. increasingly, many of them have mexican heritage. enormous amount of intermarriage bween people of mege of people not. increasinglythis isimply going to be a part of who we are. the newer generations on both side of the border have milad this relationship in n oldernt ways antha generations have. i think that gives me enormous hope for the future. there are point to be enormous tensions on the way, but it is going to look different down the road. let me introduce roberta , who is such a distinguished public servant of our country.

you just love being ambassador to mexico for the obama administration and the first half of the trump administration. she has served in many roles. i met her when she was the the early 2000's where she wasin es.ling with athe she went on to serve as deputy assistant secretary of mexico -canada economic affairs. then on to be assistant secretary for the western hemisphere where she was dealing with the entire hemisphere and was responsible for the opening of cuba. that played a huge role in our developing relationship with cuba. we were all immensely pleased when she was nominated to be ambassador to mexico. through some turbulent times, was a steadying hand in this relationship. you managed to 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 and reminding us of the larger relationship between our two countries. you left with both immense respect mexico, but i think also from so many of us in the united states w have llowed your path. it is good to have you back in washington. thanks for being here. could you offer some remarks? [applause] >> good morning. thank you and thank you all for being here. when, i want to say that andrew first asked me to be here wasy, my first thought identified going to have time to read the book by then. i didn't know exactly how soon i would be leaving mexico or whether i would have time, i didn't have much time to read while i was there. andrew said that is ok, we are not necessarily going to talk about the book. happily, i did read the book.

i did have time. it is now exactly one month since i left mexico. , it isan happily because among other things, the perfect antidote for the senecal exhausted -- cynical, exhausted former ambassador or government bureaucrat coming out of a difficult job. [laughter] that youeverything will like to see in writing about this relationship. it is positive without being ish, it is backed by data. i thank you for that contribution. i think npi and wilson center are always contributing to this relationship. when i saw the list of people here, i thought that is an incredible lineup, i definitely want to be a part of that.

part of, iey are want to be part o i amal delighted to see ambassador jones here who has been such a wonderful mentor of mine. i wanted to recognize when other person here, that is jim. -- are former diplomat you still a diplomat? more of us that i know are retired now. jim was the public affairs officer in mexico at a particularly crucial time and i learned an enormous amount from himurg that period and i want to thank them for being here and all that he is done over the years. to me, false the task of final speaker, which i first thought was an incredible opportunity because i get to hear everybody else says in them i can comment on it and isn't that much easier? but i realize now is the all the

smart people have said all the things that need to be set and i get left with what? i will make a few comments, somewhat random i fear. hopefull aittle bit of commentary that hasn't been said. first, one of the things that andrew said about the first chapter is the title of intimate strangs is a very good one. onn most of us were raised alan's writings of distant neighbs, looked on that time some sort of reformulation of that is what we are looking at. it is not true anymore. i used, in the first speech when i arrived in mexico, a comment that is in the book and to begin to some of -- attended to somebody else. i am not -- attributed to somebody else. i am not sure if it was around, but it was attributed to my

first speech. we really are not like neighbors, neighbors can move if you don't like to his living next door. we are much more like family, a dysfunctional family at times where you fight and argue at the dinner table, but in the end you are stuck with each other, and actually you love each other. sometimes we need an intervention, but we need to work it out. we are family. --nated strikes me is there is a mexican expression that perfectly fits what is going on in our relationship right now. mexicans say it's complicated. everything from a bug bite to a nuclear apocalypse. [laughter] >> the fact is this relationship is complicated right now. it is the perfect reference. as has been the case for a very long time. governments are inevitably behind the trend that their societies advance.

we are seeing a period of that again. i think the ambassador would probably agree that when we negotiated nafta, as difficult as it was, we were in some ways codifying what existed, because forces in the economy and society had already pushed that relationship forward. i think right now, when we are trying to update i we are that theregnizant really is no way back. you can have a perspective that says we would like to go back 30 that is to look at what is happening on the ground and try and not just update nafta to bring it in line with what is happening -- no energy chapter, has to be better pr, how can we facility

things going forward? when i was ambassador, one of the things i used to say to folks who are writing speeches for me was, i would get a speech and say where are the humans in the speech? there are no people in this speech. these are excellent talking points, but there are note human beings in them -- no human beings in them. a really good speech, like a really good book has people in them. i am particularly grateful for andrew for telling the story because i was constantly asking for, where are the stories that illustrate the page of statistics that you have given me? compellingics are for those of us inside the beltway. they are very compelling. trade has quadrupled or increased six times, one point explain dollars of trade everyday, etc. crossing the border.

where are the people in those stories? who has benefited from this? the answer is in this book and in the stories. i wanted to talk briefly about the idea of americans in mexico because it is something i worked pretty hard on. the numbers are actually probably between 1.6 million and 1.8 million. that is americans who live for work part-time in mexico. it is a very rough figure because we have no way of really measuring unless they use u.s. government services. about as manyat as 600,000 of those americans may be children of people who returned to mexico, whether voluntarily or deported, who were born in the united states. we have 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 a u.s. passport. just as important is the mexican documentation because despite the fact that they may have absolutely a right to go to school in mexico, they won't be allowed in without the papers. they won't access the health care system. we can provide their u.s. documentation in mexican documentation when they return mexico, we lose hundreds of thsands of kids who are frankly fodder for criminal enterprise or other bad future because we don't go to school, don't access the health care system, don't use what they can. some of the best things 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 enjoyed who are so omy favorites. they were able to help us on this. also on these passportai that we and worklates go out with micipalnd local officials, we try to encourage every family to come in. we help people to get their h certificate for those in the u.s. and mexican officials helped do the same so they can be registered. i think that is absolutely critical. agent hasate been noticing a trend in that many americans who had originally settled in san miguel aca because they are thinking that it is more mexican than son mcgill these

i think there is this growing. happening.hat isbsoluty my own view, i have often said that as a governme bureaucrat for nearly 32 years, you have to be an optimist. yen't, youou st your wrists. i remain optimistic about the relationship in the long-term. we have too much in common. we are joined by geography and families. we live better and provide better for our people when we are cooperating. that one ofso say the distinctions between mexicans and americans is that mexicans live their history every day. they remember every part of the history and the offense it is talk to their 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 sotimes as well. 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 every day or forgetting every. i am particularly happy to see alan here because he is to drive me crazy as a policymaker because he was tenacious and moving forward on things that everybody else said were impossible. that is the sign of somebody who truly has a vision a who really believes that all the stuff that other people say it can't be done can be done. change inemarkable

our own thinking when we started thinking about pushing the and doingy from -- things like preclearance or unified cargo inspections. one of the things i wanted to comment on was the notion of shift.s a paradigmatic i think one of the things that gets lost in the debate today is that nafta wasn't just a commercial agreement. wasi't just a change in our economy andore industries becoming integrated. mexicans thought aboutn the w themselves and the way they interacted with the world. politically, even psychologically. when we talk about how younger we ares see themselves, not talking about the cowboy doctrine.

we aren't talking about why they should feel so estranged from the rest of the world, so separate. special, but not separate. i think the things that was important in this was a shift toward a bet, if you will that mexican policymakers made weakening with nafta that the future for mexico -beg with nafta that the future for mexico was pitched to north not meanwhich does 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. that notion that mexico should open to the world had nothing to ensife about from an opening to the world, was a very big change in the way mexicans thought and saw

themselves, and is what is distinct from 30 years ago. am not sure you can put that genie back in the bottle. thing is that the reforms that have been enacted under the current government, the very beginning of the current govnmt, there has been a lot of debate of do the reforms estate in place, will there be a weakening of those reforms? andrew's stories are very interesting to me because they underscore the importance of those reforms and deepening of them going forward. others sayk of what about the future of technology and what andrew just said about startups, that absolutely cannot happen without education reform. i don't know enough about education to know if it was this reform or another reform, but mexico desperately needs education reform because otherwise, it's young people

will not be educated for the jobs that they could move into in the 21st century. we're not just talking about the -- we are go talking about the fact that k-12 is going to have to be different because you ne more than 12 years of education. energy reform is going to be essential. andrew referred to an amount of oil that mexico is pumping. figures i have seen are under 2 million barrels a day. if that is true, that is the reason for opening up partnerships, not ownership in mexico. it's essential for the future of mexico, both on nontraditional and on renewable and on fossil feels. finally, i really think that

th is one of the most important things i learned in mexico, which is the importance of continuing with judicial reform and the rule of law. if there was a slogan i came away with it would be, it's the role of law, stupid. it affects everything. it affects everything. all of the positives and negatives we have talked about today, are affected by whether or not the judicial reform takes hold, the oral trials take hold, they reform the whole system, and people have faster, more open access to justice and less corrupting influence because it is more 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

i will say that there is a backlash against that that is dangerous. people see criminals walking free on bail, they think they are criminals, that it needs to happen. sh pull is very worrisome about some changes that may happen. it is really important that it be pursued. a judge in the yucatan said to for ashe had been a judge long time, but she was very much with the new program. she said there was a woman and man in her court, the woman was alleging that the man had stolen a rooster. she had come to an agreement with him that he would pay her to roosters -- two roosters. the woman said no, he has to go to jail. the magistrate said, but i am getting you recompense more than

what you lost. you will have it immediately. the woman said no, i want him to go to jail and pounded on the table. this is the mentality that needs to be changed. under the old system, everyone went to jail. to jail fory went pretrial detention sometimes longer than what their sentence would have been. people think that, why should i just settle for two roosters when this batman to go to jail? -- bad man would go to jail? might end up with nothing to eat her own property values might go down etc. it is a long process, but it is the only way that the critical ,ssue on most people's minds number one which is corruption can be attacked. meaningful rule of an institutional

strengthening. i have a lot of other random comments, but i will save them for questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> we are out of time, so i can't take questions. >> we have two very quick questions. i see a hand in the back. >> thank you very much for attending. i am a first generation american. i was just living in mexico for the last two and a half years until a month ago. during the time i was out there, i learned more about how mexico, over 50% of mexicans are part of and kind of economy addressing my first generation ask,ericanism, i wanted to how do you see the importance of

those who are naturalized citizens from mexico now residing in the states or even back in mexico now, their importance in civic engagement as important as those mexicans who are not part of the informal economy? >> is there another question before we close it? let's go to someone who hasn't i am curious your thoughts, or how optimistic are you on some of the progress of the bilateral relationship as it relates to trade security, immigration, security reform, under an antelope presidency given he has spotted policies that are quite similar during what we saw the during the trump campaign period.

>> let me quickly take those two. let me take first of the informal economy and i'm not going to try to compete wi anto who is a superb economist and has all the data. wehat some vergh percentage of mexicans operate in the informal economy, whether it is over 50% or not. it is too high. it's too high for a country that is hoping to grow. that has to be tackled. it speaks to the fact that mexicans want to run their own business, wanted to work and the government makes it hard for them because of either bureaucracy orn, a 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 arerwork, but also you going to end up getting squeezed by potentially the cartels or

others, whether you are formal or informal. better to have your paperwork in order and protection of the state, etc. if the state is functioning as it should. i think there is an interesting thing about naturalized citizens. someone told me in one airing the has a very high population of american retirees, there are a lot of ngos. retired,hose folks are so it speaks to their desire to join something or create something. it also speaks to the fact that in the united states, what we call civil society elsewhere in the world, civil society here, we may be bowling alone, there may not be as much as much of there used to be, but there is still plenty of activism around what you believe in. if it's environmental, women's rights, take care for children, whatever it is. that is still on the upswing in

mexico. it is far better than it was when i started to work on mexico 15 years ago, but it is a lower level of civil society, especially outside mexico city than you would expect. naturalizedux of citizens, whether those are americans who live there now and want to bring some of the organizational talent. as much, it is mexicans or mexican kids have grown up in the united states and go back to mexico and think, why can't we do x? and why can't we do y? they are used to being a part of groups. i think that could be healthy. i think that could be one of the positives. certainly, what we have seen in the u.s. from those who are mexican in the u.s., is once you get past a fear of undocumented status, you certainly have a e and a voice that is important and loud and

increasing people running for office and caucuses contributing to the united states in a way that is absolutely beneficial. the other question was about optimistic on 900 different subjects. i can't has all of them. i will say again that i am an optimist. i do think that we are in for some bumpy times in the short term. ist.not take catastrophe i did not tend to think that any of the candidates running -- i don't have a chicken little attitude that the sky is falling on a of them. i think we are going to have to see what ends up being the governing program. there are things about it that i think a very worrisome. there are other things that have been said that are reassuring. i think a mandate will be

important because the most difficult thing to come out of these elections would be if they there wasose that difficulty in accepting the results. >> thank you. a great honor to have you here. [applause] >>his book spans two countries, as we've heard. institutions. to this book is work that began when andrew was at the wilson center. it was completed as he became president of npi. i want to close with thinking -- mpi. i want to closby thanking the panel. it is another great example of

how we have had a relationship long standing over the years that has been very productive broadly and in the exact example of andrew and his work transitioning. thank wilson for its parenting. it's parenting of andre >> now being delivered to energeticm of a very and accomplished new president. we areery pleased and we are very pleased and therefore say congratulations to you for this ine contribution as a real takeoff in your presidency here of our institution. i also have to really say thank you to this incredibly stellar lineup of people that andrew has pulled together for this launch event. think of what it is that you

have all heard this morning. for those of us who are involved, and i wanted to absolutely include jim jones in this,t is so wond erful you. this is an incredible reunion. our lives and our careers, all of us have interconnected and taken differentms and been in different institutional settings for decades. it's extraordinary. it's all come together here in this extraordinary conversation that has taken place this morning. thank all of you for being part isudnce ineing here,ion, for also the audience that is on livestream. if you're looking for any of these kinds of issues, ular the migration related issues, go to our website. let's continue the conversation.

please feel free to come forward and also for certain, pick up a copy of the book in the lobby. i'm sure and wbe hap to sign it. thanks for being with us. [applause] >> live wednesday on the c-span networks, at 10:00 a.m. the house returns for work on a combined spending bill. on c-span2, the senate returns for debate in both side judicial nominations. on c-span3, health and human services secretary alex a czar testifies before the house -- testifiesr -- azar before the house.

>> on wednesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two, the memorial service marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of robert f kennedy from arlington national cemetery. featured speakers include family, friends, members of congress, and former president bill clinton. watch the rfk 50th memorial service at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two, c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. next, the acting director of u. immigration and customs enforcement on his agency's mission to enforce immigration laws. topics include stationary ti