 Welcome to all of you. Buenas tardes. My name is Andres Martinez. I'm the editorial director of Future Tense and a professor of practice at our Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Future Tense is actually a collaboration between ASU, New America, the think tank, and Slate. And this is our latest social distancing social. So really honored to be doing this one in collaboration with the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center. Been a longtime fan of the Mexico Institute and we've done things together in the past. And for those of you, a lot of you probably know that if you're interested in all things happening in Mexico and having an honest broker in terms of a place for analysis and to bring people together who care about the bilateral relationship. You'll never walk alone having the Mexico Institute there. And so I had to phrase it just that way because Duncan Wood, who is a very able leader of the Mexico Institute is a is a huge. And also I should give a shout out and plug an important webinar that the Mexico Institute is hosting tomorrow. So US Mexico cooperation during the drug pandemic. I believe it's with Comexie in Mexico as well. And that is a conversation with with Chris Landau the current US ambassador in Mexico City. So this is in some ways an appetizer to that conversation and maybe I can, I can pry away from Carlos and Alejandra some, some advice for the US ambassador in Mexico. I think that's the same time tomorrow, different channels. So, you know, go to the Mexico Institute page to RSVP if you haven't already. So today I'm joined by two of my favorite people and two of the smartest people I know, and those two things don't always overlap but it's fantastic when they do Alejandra Hass and Carlos bravo regidor. So, we're now at see they sort of as a recent past and so that's another another nice sort of symbiotic thing because we've done some great collaborations with see they, but I'm very excited to check in with both of you on the current. Let's just say a tragic situation in terms of the pandemic and what it means for Mexico for the bilateral relationship today and going forward. So I've been really looking forward to this and thank, thank you both for doing this with us. I know, I know you're both really busy. So, welcome. Thank you. And I want to start with you on a topic that predates the pandemic because typically the way that our media cycles operate now. Especially if you're sort of of my tribe and Carlos is tribe coming from the journalism world. People tend to have very short attention spans and we tend to move on to the next thing that you know the next shiny object that grabs our attention, the big story. Obviously that the story that pandemic is the biggest story of our lifetimes, perhaps, probably, and it's in its universality of nothing else it's. So it's, it's a little bit understandable, but pre pandemic. We were already very concerned about a humanitarian tragedy in terms of migration. And I, you know, this was something that consumed a lot of our attention. You were heading conafred Mexico's federal Commission to combat discrimination. We had some I had the good fortune to collaborate with with some of your team on, on looking at discrimination and how media was covering the story of Central American migrants making their way through Mexico towards the United States. There was a spike in that migration. And that was, you know, that was a big story in 2018 2019. And then with this, the advent of the pandemic, it's the, it's the type of story that we tend to shrug off and move on and I just want to open the conversation by talking a little bit about the latest development on that front, how the pandemic has impacted it. And then I think it's also a nice way to segue into a conversation about how the US and Mexico work or don't work together on shared challenges and opportunities and that was an interesting case study because it was a sort of it was a shared challenge and it wasn't the classic, you know, what are we going to do about Mexicans trying to cross the border it was two countries dealing with with this influx of people all coming from Central America for reasons that we might be familiar with. So I want to start there, if you could just pick up the thread on that 2019 story. So thank you Andres and thank you to ASU and Future Tense. I'm very happy to be here and I also want to say hi to my friends at the Mexico Institute in Washington. And to Carlos Bravo of course always a pleasure seeing you. Yeah, I think the context of migration is a context that we need to look at, as you say from before what what's happening now. What we saw is these caravans that came into Mexico from Central America, people in Central America increasingly in conditions that were only available there and looking for a better future also some talk of some organized caravans and some people trafficking which is something that hasn't necessarily been proven, but at least I mean when I went to the southern border in Mexico in Tapa Chula in 2018 to see the first caravan come into Mexico and walked with them for a bit. These were genuine people that were looking for for for a better opportunity like Mexicans have been going to the US for for so such a long time and humans move around the world for the same reasons. So the whole the whole year and a half let's say from from 2018 to let's say the early months of 2020. We saw three, let's say three different types of answer to the caravans from Mexico. The first was the previous administration who basically said, just get to Tijuana and do what you can. Right. And so it was kind of an open border without saying it openly. But it was the fact of what was happening. Also they were sending some bosses to take people from the southern border to the northern border because they didn't want to anything to happen on the way. Mexico is quite an unsafe place for undocumented migrants. But they but the government federal government didn't get involved. And so that was answered by the new administration with a very strong response, a very different response to the previous administration. And for the first six months, there was a humanitarian response that was very robust and a totally different policy which was responding by giving out humanitarian visas to people that needed them. Although the humanitarian visas were not used as humanitarian visas by by the migrants, most of them use them as a as a conduit as a conduit to just to cross Mexico and to get to the northern border. In the month of May or June last year, we saw a huge change in that in the opposite direction with the United States taking some strong positions against Mexico letting migrants go through. And what we saw was Mexico responding quite strongly to that and putting the Guardia Nacional, which is a new, let's say a new police force that also includes military on the southern border in Mexico. So that precedes the pandemic. We've seen in other countries in Latin America, some militarization of borders, I have to say, for example, the border between Colombia and Venezuela, the border of Costa Rica, also the frontier of Costa Rica also has a has some military presence. So, this is not something that is only happening in Mexico, but maybe Mexico is is a, you know, we've seen what a military militarized border looks like in terms of human rights violations because we started before the pandemic, it's not something as new as other countries in Latin America. So what we are seeing right now is, I guess, I'm very surprised by these two kinds of approaches to the pandemic so the closing off absolute absolute closing off of the US and these declarations that all non migrants need to not go into the US. A plus the review that President Trump has said that needs to be done by all agencies and all programs to see if they maintain the mobility programs or not, which is quite a strong measure and strong language and it's something that he said 60 days and can be extended to 60 more days and that means, or it can be extended for forever. So this is this is something that we need to take into account and it's that although this is a is a it's a it's a moment of emergency a lot of these measures in terms of migration are going to stay and are going to be the new normal for the migration system around the world. There's a lot to say about the European Union closing off its borders. I mean, I think there's a lot to talk about in terms of the world order and what this new normal means in terms of, you know, the conditions in which we were a year and a half ago when we had an international compact or packed up for my migration that had another logic, right. But on the other hand and I can finish with this, because I'd love to hear Carlos and or yourself. On the other hand, there's these things like people that do work in hospitals or hospital work or, or people that are in areas like agriculture, a lot of them are undocumented migrants, particularly in agriculture, they're putting food on America's tables, but at the same time, they're seen as the enemy. So this is, this is something that also not only the US has to grapple with Argentina, for example, has been enacting some executive orders to have medical doctors or nurses have a revalidation of their that are not Argentinian that are not allowed to exercise their profession in Argentina to have sort of a quick process to make them able to work legally in Argentina. And this is, and they're looking for other places cuba sending doctors everywhere. I mean, the needs that arise from this pandemic are changing the way in which we relate to each other, much more so in terms of xenophobia and political discourse that is anti migration on the one hand. On the other hand, it's also putting on the table how much we actually depend on each other and depend also on the work of people that are in other countries that have the expertise, the possibilities and knowledge, or even just by demographics, the needs that some countries have of having people of a certain age coming and work in those countries. So I think a lot of confusion there still, but a lot of worrying measures in terms of human rights as well. Yeah, that was that was a really great overview and way to kick us off and we, we threw borderlands this concept into the title of this conversation and some somewhat amorphous almost on purpose because it feels like it's not clear whether the porousness of the border of borders and sort of the concept of globalization and also the concept of our two countries getting ever closer regardless of whatever political moment we're living through whether that's all going to be sort of up for review. And on the question of essential workers, I have to give a shout out to our friend Alfredo Corchado wrote a lovely as kind of very personal essay in the New York Times about if they're, I think the headline was if if they're essential, they're not illegal. And, you know, these moments do remind us of our, our societal reliance and dependence on, on people that we sort of, you know, I don't want to say lure, but encourage to come work for us. We depend heavily on them we don't in many cases pay them what what their labor is worth. And we haven't modernized our immigration system to give them legal status and there's a longstanding sort of hypocrisy on that but that's my, my editorializing for the day but just quickly on the on the on the flow of immigrants coming from Central America just just to close that loop. Have we seen had the numbers already started to, to taper down is is and with all of this is it is the tendency for people to be to sort of stay in place for the moment or what do you have a sense of what's currently happening on on say the Mexico Southern border these days. Yeah, so I think there's a couple of data points that are useful one is that the, the, the migrants from Central America that were sent to Mexico to wait for their status their asylum status of the asylum seekers are down to seven a day when they were to work 300 a day a few months ago so I think that's a data point that is useful. The flows are are much lower. And that's also due to, but first of all, because of the stay at home and the militarization as well, but also because the albergues the how do you say albergues English I just forgot it's like the homes were from for migrants right Yeah, where we're a civil society and shelters, sorry, shelters, shelters, shelters that are mostly civil society or the Catholic Church, many, many almost all of them are closed I mean they were, it was very hard for them to deal with the pandemic and having also an overflow of people there so the flows are are less, much less but also one thing that we have to know is that these are people that are a lot of them are leaving from situations that were already dire that you know motivated by violence or by the need to eat and that's not going to stop with the pandemic that's probably going to be worse. So even if we see less of a flow right now I think we can anticipate that the flow is going to become larger or bigger and it's going and the flows are going to take more dangerous roots because of the closing off of the border so I think the pandemic makes it worse the condition the economic conditions are going to get worse all over the globe I mean recession is everywhere. I don't know that violence is going to get any better I mean there were some speculation that crime was going to go down but I'm not sure it's going to be the case at least in the medium and long term and at the same time if you close borders and have more militarization on all of those of those borders in Central American the different countries Mexico and then the US. You're just going to make migrants take different foods so I think even if right now the flows are less that's not necessarily a trend that's going to continue for a long Right, right. Carlos I want to bring you in on this on this immigration question, you know, address it however you like but I also added to that, you know if you could help us sort of put it in a political context in terms of how our two countries, North American neighbors of Mexican United States are collaborating and then again this has sort of been a an interesting case study for the. I would call it, you know curious relationship between Donald Trump and there is Manolo Xhorador and sometimes there's a danger in personalizing governments but these are obviously two real characters in the full sense of the word and and I think their governments are, are a reflection of their personalities and their instincts and there was a huge expectation when my to call you up so that came in the office in late 2018 that the relationship was going to turn sour there had been a lot of criticism in Mexico that his predecessor hadn't stood up to Trump enough you know when when when Trump would would tweet, you know nasty things about Mexico or Mexicans. And so I, you know, I think there's been a, I mean to my from this side of the border. It's been somewhat surprising the extent to which, however, despite their personal idiosyncrasies they seem to have found a, a working relationship it's not necessarily the most sophisticated and mature dialogue with the American heads of state, because reflecting the domestic politics and so on but on, you know as Alexander alluded to, when there were moments when Washington exerted pressure on Mexico City to, you know, help the US, you know from the US perspective deal with this. The response was not to necessarily, you know, stand up to the Americans or stick it to the Americans the way I think had maybe been and maybe was ill founded but an expectation early on. There has been a way in which they've collaborated and then recently, there have been other examples of they, you know, you hear a phone calls and and they're pleasant they're amicable. There's been an interesting dance to watch there was this whole oil summit recently where they made a side deal where Trump kind of helped out Mexico and OPEC stuff and so it's kind of a broad observation that I just would welcome your wisdom or in respect to how I'm supposed to think about the way in which our governments and and and heads of state are working together because obviously in this moment it's it's super important that we have close collaboration, whether it's on the challenges posed by migrants coming from third countries or the crisis of the of the moment that we're living. And again, thank you so much for for having us it's it's such a treat always to do things with future tense and with ASU. So I'm so glad to be here. I want to pick up on something that my colleague, Alexander mentioned, I think it's quite quite remarkable in terms of how to understand the impact of the pandemic on you know the bilateral relationship but all I think also the impact on larger general dynamics of the new the new migration configuration so to speak that was already, you know, shifting and was already taking place before the pandemic I think that on the one hand we we're seeing a clash of forces that may somehow be represented on the one hand by the caravans and on the other hand by the wall. I think I think the contrast between those two images on the one hand movement from the south to the north, because of unbearable living conditions, and because of course of the hope, you know, for, you know, for a better life that is the engine, one way or another for all of these people that are trying to you know, get away from from their countries and you know try to find a new place to start a new life. On the one hand and on the other hand, what the wall represents in terms of you know being just a barrier for that movement and a denial of an opportunity, a denial of that hope for a for a better life. I think we should take stock of the fact that in the context of a pandemic like this in the context of an emergency and all the politics of fear that somehow end up, you know, winning the moment. You know that the logic of the wall will probably, you know, win over the logic of the caravans. Because well we know that there is an authoritarian temptation we've seen it all across the board not not only in the in the border between the Mexico and the US. There is an authoritarian temptation of course, to turn the pandemic into a sort of confirmation that people coming from abroad represents some sort of threat, or some sort of danger in the US that has been elaborated, particularly, you know, in terms of crime, and also probably in terms of culture. They didn't share our values, or, you know, they come here and they are, you know, seeking our resources they don't pay taxes and they're prone to crime. Both both both accounts very questionable very problematic, but still you know very, very effective in many ways to sort of give credence to anti immigration sentiments, or anti immigration policies. So we see that on the one hand I think and it's sad but it's true. And the other saddest piece you were just mentioning Andres, I think one of its key features or one of its most persuasive arguments is precisely how the pandemic and these touches upon something that Alexander was saying too. How the pandemic forces us to reckon with the other side of migration with how immigrants are really contributing. In many ways, immigrants in the US right now and documented immigrants are feeding Americans while they are in their houses. It's an occasion of course for a sort of a humanitarian soul searching. And you know the need to recognize how much we depend on each other regardless of our of our immigration status or a country of origin or the color of our skin. But in the clash between these forces. What I see is, you know, the forces represented by the wall becoming stronger because of the opportunities created by the by the emergency and the politics of fear that follow. You were talking and I want to I want to dwell into this we're talking about the curious relationship between our two heads of state Donald Trump and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. And I think this this occasion, you know, shows us very clearly a contrast between them. I mean, both are one way or another characterized as populists, although there are a lot of differences between them. I mean, yes, we I think we can all agree that, you know, somehow they resemble in certain things. But there was one key difference that in this context becomes very, very visible and very salient, which is the following, the kind of populism that Donald Trump represents is a populism of exclusion, regarding, you know, the other, in this case, immigrants, you know, the populism that Donald Trump represents is very hostile towards foreigners, towards women, towards minorities, right. It's a sort of populism in which the people are defined in a way that you trace a line of exclusion. Regarding immigrants in this case, this is the sort of subject I'm most interested in right now, right, where Lopez Obrador's brand of populism is much more inclusionary, you know, Lopez Obrador's populism is a populism about not necessarily the nation. In racialized terms, although there are some contents like that, but you know, it's a populism of the underdogs, of the downtrodden of the forgotten, you know, it's a populism that wants to include these large sectors of the population that have feel excluded for a really long time, given the economic model, given the politics, given the prevailing culture, etc. So in this case, it's interesting because when we look at how that contrast between this inclusion and exclusion populism has taken form in the bilateral relationship, well, what we see is that Lopez Obrador, Lopez Obrador's government had a very interesting, ambitious and innovative agenda in terms of migration at the very beginning of his government, you know, there was even a very surprising and very welcome appointment for the head of the National Immigration Institute. He was a migrantologist, you know, a very, very recognized, very well regarded, and they started putting together a policy that really contrasted with, on the one hand, the policy that Mexico had had regarding Central America with the Peña Nieto administration and the so-called Plan Frontera Sur, but on the other hand was very contrasting with Trump's immigration policy. And when push came to shove, the United States made very openly clear, very aggressively clear, that they were not going to put up with this change of policy regarding the fact, you know, that they were respectful of the new government. You know, we all know this, this episode Trump came out and threatened, you know, to impose a new tariff on Mexican goods in the border if Mexico didn't do more to stop the caravans and stop the migration flow. What's interesting, of course, is that in spite of how strongly the Democratic victory of López Obrador was, of course, the force of those Democratic votes or that Democratic support was not enough to say no to Donald Trump's threat and the Mexican government, you know, really shifted and really veered very aggressively and then, you know, it was the National Guard, the new body, you know, meant to fight drug criminals was put to work to stop immigrants. Of course, I mean, in a way, this is not new, the United States has always been the Mexico, Mexico's presidential power, you know, sort of a, what we call a real factor of power regarding of the checks and balances system, you know, or, you know, the Democratic opposition and now it's just a force to be reckoned with. What was new, I think, were different in this episode was how aggressive and how open, you know, Donald Trump intervened to actually force a policy change regarding migration from Central America. So I think that the pandemic, the context created by the pandemic will reinforce somehow this dynamic. And this also forces us to deal with something in the Mexican context that I think we have been pushing or trying to overlook for a really long time. You know, we used to tell ourselves somehow the tale that we were, you know, not good with our Central American brothers, because the Americans were forcing us to somehow outsource their migration policy, right. But I think what we have seen in the last year and a half, you know, in the media in the polls is that there is indeed sort of anti-immigrant feeling in Mexico as well. And even that the shift in the policy of the new government, you know, has popular support. Somehow we Mexicans didn't like it when Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was anti-Mexican. But, you know, we're okay when it doesn't mean Mexico but Central Americans. This is, you know, something that I think we still haven't really reckoned with and done, you know, the appropriate soul searching it deserves. But at the same time, I think that with the pandemic, there will be an occasion for that feeling somehow to consolidate. Yeah, that's a really good point. And by the way, I wasn't trying to suggest that the two leaders are getting along because they are similar. I do see some similarities. But obviously, their worldviews are very different. They come from very different places. It's always, you know, and this term populist as you well describe is used very loosely and the definitions are very loose. I think what I do think one of the things that they have in common is they govern very much relying on their instincts. And that part of the, I think the reason why this label of populist gets thrown around is they both seem equally suspicious coming again from very different places and having very different motives. I feel are suspicious of technocratic expertise that they in some way feel is undemocratic, you know, because it's a buffer between them and their base and the people. And so that's an interesting similarity. And also there's, I think they are both, again, and with seeking very different things, they both I think are the politics of nostalgia, right? They're both yearning to take countries, their respective countries back to a better past, you know, and trying to reclaim something. And that that's that resonates, obviously, with people. And so, but because of all the differences, that's why I would just certainly describe any time they can, they can agree to anything as improbable, although as you said, it's they're not necessarily acting on a leverage playing field. And particularly going forward, it's going to be interesting to see how that relationship changes in light of the very serious challenges that I think Mexico will face on the economic side. And I think you were looting for that, you know, when when you rely so heavily on remittances, oil receipts, tourism, you know, it's just, it's, I mean, everybody's taking a big hit. That's, that's got to be very worrisome if you're, if you're lópez orador. But one thing I wanted to ask both of you to come back to is, you quite eloquently describe how, you know, there, there's nothing like a pandemic to empower those who were already predisposed to build moats around your, you know, your people, your country, or build walls, I guess would be more appropriate. Although I think there was a, there was one time when he had somebody look in the moats, but, but walls or, you know, pull up the draw bridges as they used to do in the Middle Ages when there was a plague, and to blame the outsider, as you described, and that could certainly be alarming in terms of what it might mean for the bilateral relationship. On the other hand, and maybe this is naive, but if I were optimistic, there is an argument that part of the aftermath of the pandemic is going to be to try to, you know, shorten our supply lines and be less reliant that we hear now being the United States, but I think this is part of the discourse we're going to see on this side of the border to become less reliant on China as our manufacturing base. And so, while there are people in the US administration who like, you know, bashing Mexico as a, as a, as a sort of go to scapegoat when necessary. The relationship with China is going to be, if anything more complicated and probably more poison going into an election season, especially given, you know, this accusation of the pandemic's origins and all this, you know, stuff. So I wonder, you know, if there might be a shift whereby, you know, the USMCA region and the economic interdependence that we have in North America, you know, could be fortified a little bit, vis-a-vis like the relationship we have with China. I don't know if that spills over into the political realm, or if it's simply like every nation for itself, forget about whatever your trading block happens to be. But it's kind of an interesting thing to speculate on and there's been some really interesting reporting in the Washington Post and the New York Times and a lot of the papers and just in the last week on this issue of US companies who do rely for some of their supplies from Mexican, you know, plant, plants that manufacturing facilities they have in Mexico to supply, you know, this is the case of the Department of Defense but also a lot of medical suppliers and they feel like some of the essential goods they need in this moment of a pandemic, they need that the cross-border back and forth with trade to continue and yet some of the governors in some of these Mexican states were closing down these plants. And so there, you know, it was like the governor of Chihuahua or Nuevo Leone or whatnot might have not considered these plants essential that need to be open, but the HQ and the US side felt that it was and that was kind of an interesting tension that goes into, you know, how much interdependence can we really have on these reporters, you know, at any level, whether it's right next door in Mexico or whether it's China. So it's, it's, I think migration is one subject where this really plays out in the most visceral human way in terms of the human element, but, but Alexandra maybe both of you can address this question of whether as things shift and maybe, you know, the US, the corporate side and on the political side are going to be less desiring of relying so heavily on China, whether that might be an opportunity for this region or is that just me being too naive. Well, I mean my thoughts are quite pessimistic but I would say, I mean, economic opportunism is going to be used in any case. But I think what we have to break from is the age old idea that international trade is good for peace because actually what we've seen is President Trump using weaponizing international trade for other purposes, right. I also think and that's something that Mexico has to deal with. And it's that it's such an unbalanced economic relationship that was dependent on a good political will from the US. But what we've seen right now is that our space to negotiate is quite small. It's a reality because we have so much to lose in terms of of the economy, if we would say no to things that are asked by the government of the US. So I would, I would ask, I would ask another question to both of you which is, I mean, how can we trust that trade will be a vehicle for, let's say social cultural integration. So if you want to say, well, our trade relations going to be strengthened by this, maybe, you know, maybe yes, maybe it's going to be a strategy for the US to take Mexico and Canada and say, look guys you're going to build stuff for us, and we're not going to buy anything from China, maybe that's going to happen, whether that will mean a better life for Mexican workers I mean what the last example that you gave is quite the contrary. These companies that are making people go and some of them have two, three, four thousand people working in the plants. They're exposing their workers to very, very dangerous situations without without appropriate measures for for sanitation, but also with that with a view that the workforce is quite disposable. And if these people don't take that job, somebody else will because they pay better than other working conditions in Mexico, but they also make a profit because they pay less than in other, let's say more developed countries. So, I mean, my question is, okay, you might have a strengthened trade relationship but who is that going to who's going to get any benefit from that when the imbalance is so pronounced. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a deterrent of free trade or any, I haven't been historically opposed to North America as an economic region on the contrary. But that was when I also thought that that meant that societies were going to be better off. My question is with these positions where you, you are actually dividing these two topics, and you're targeting the people inhabitants of one country and bringing them in your political discourse, but also in the way that you treat them once they're in your territory. My question is, yeah, okay, trade, but to what effect. So that's a really sobering note of realism because a lot of us champions of the bilateral relationship, you know, have been very excitedly, trying to inform people and tout the fact that there were there you know they're there years recently I think 2019 2018 and some months where Mexico was the number one trade partner of the United States which a lot of Americans don't realize and so we reached this, this pinnacle of this trading relationship and as you said like, given all the classic things that you know, economists would like us to believe in free traders like that meant that the, the relationships would be more harmonious than ever and when we were talking about the threats that the Trump administration level that at the Mexican government last year around the migration question it was a threat of tariffs like okay so now you depend on this trade guess what. So I do hear you so Carlos help us out and you can answer a Alexander's great question. I'm afraid that I am on the side of the pessimistic team as well. So you're on your own address. But I mean, I agree with everything. I might trade teams, you know, because you guys are too persuasive. Come to this side, we have cookies. I also think there's another there's another element to be to be mentioned which is USMCA. You know, one of the things, one of the most remarkable things in which you know NAFTA and USMCA are different has to do with salaries and labor rights. I think that the way in which USMCA ended up actually happening had to do a lot with how the Democrats realized that you know if they if they keep on postponing, you know, the voting of it, or if they rejected it, this was going to become a great weapon for a great electoral weapon for Trump. And on the other hand, I mean, I think the Democrats were very aware of the benefits that a free trade agreement with Mexico has, you know, has brought to the US, even though you know the the the accounts are not always positive you know the trade trade agreements are not good or bad across the board they benefit certain sectors and they you know they damage and others others on both sides of the border. Now, so I think that you know the the premise of NAFTA was that Mexico could be very competitive because of how cheap labor was. I don't think that's the premise of USMCA. Actually, in terms of enforcing labor rights, I think that you know that premise has is going to, you know, we need a new premise of how Mexico is going to insert itself. within the North American economy, because I think cheap labor is not going to cut it anymore. Or if you know if if Mexican, you know, maquilas or you know companies try to insist upon that the Americans and the American unions now have instruments to, you know, to to to challenge to challenge that so on the one hand we see that you know one of the potential effects of the pandemic could be for the US to try to you know, take away operations or business from China and bring them to Mexico. But on the other hand, I don't I don't I'm not sure, quite frankly, if Mexico is ready to seize that opportunity, not only because as I was mentioning the new terms of our trade agreement of the USMCA. But also because one of the things that China has was a lot of investment in science and technology. At the beginning of the Chinese boom, of course it was certainly cheap labor as well. Right. But as China started developing. It was not only cheap labor, I mean, the cost of labor in China rose and production costs in China rose. But the competitive advantage was still, you know, that China was able to produce, you know, micro components or certain very advanced technology. It has, you know, the labor for the qualified labor force to do that. And I don't think that the current government is actually, you know, setting the foundations for Mexico to seize that opportunity in terms of education in terms of science and in terms of technology. So that worries me because I think this somehow has a, you know, the face or it's it's the it's taking the form of a missed opportunity. Of course, I mean, in a context like this, you know, with the economic emergency is next in Mexico is really hard, you know, to push for investment in this sort of sectors, you know, when you have really a crisis that is going to, you know, drive millions of people back into poverty. Right. I mean, the priorities are not aligning in a way that could lead Mexico to adopt a much more ambitious and innovative, you know, policy, you know, trade related industrial policy to take advantage of this quite frankly so so yes, I am pessimistic as well. Yeah, no, that's, that's really, that's really interesting and well said and, you know, I think I'm, you know, on this side of the border to speaking for from the vantage point of somebody in a university we are worried about, you know, in these times you can pretty short-sighted, although politically perhaps understandable decisions to underinvest in research and one of the things that, you know, my boss our president of ASU Michael Crow has really been very passionate about is trying to find more ways to collaborate across the border on research on STEM fields but also others feeling that that's been a sort of underdeveloped aspect of what's anyway such a close bilateral relationship but I want to keep talking about the bilateral relationship in the spirit of US MCA we have a question for Marie in Montreal that I want to just throw out and it's also very a very future tense in terms of the subject because she's asking about surveillance tools and how they're going to be normalized as a result of the pandemic which is really interesting at something that we've been paying a lot of attention to just, you know, whether privacy is going to be a victim of the pandemic and one of the victims of the pandemic just in our everyday lives but when you think about the border, she's asking do you foresee these these that tracking tools and monitoring tools will be used at the border and, you know, used against my immigrants. What do you think about that? I mean, I would say, I would, it's a fascinating topic. I'm not and I love future tense work. But I love it as a spectator more than that being my area of expertise. I think we can expect that I would be very curious and I think everybody read Harari's piece in the FT where he actually was saying that that's what's going to happen. I think the technologies are very developed and things are going to start being normalized in the in the common relationship. I think one of the things that we can foresee right now, unless we just do a general statement that it's going to change a lot is our region as opposed to the European Union is a region that will hardly work without air travel right. I mean, in Europe, you can take a train anywhere. Mexico, Canada and the United States, very hard, not only because we have not invested in training in train lines but also because it's many more kilometers. It's much bigger, you know, I think it takes the same time to get from Tijuana to Cancun than it takes to get from London to Moscow. So, I mean, it's a very, these are three very large countries. And so I think something like the European integration that doesn't only depend and, you know, people can just drive through countries. That changes completely in North America. And so air travel is central to what we do and air travel is going to change a lot. And so I think apart from from the fact that of course, face recognition technologies might start being used if they're not already, I would be surprised that they're not being used already, but but much more, let's say, mainstream into policy. But I also think that that relationships that don't go through like the undocumented part of this are also going to change a lot. And I wonder how, because I really ask myself how we can scale back from nobody goes from one place to the other when what we're seeing and being told by epidemiologists is that this is going to have a rebound that's going to be even worse than what we've just lived. So how we're going to manage that and who's going to be able to travel or who's not is also a big question. That's a good point. I have another question I want to ask. Coming from Axel, who is a good friend of ours at Pomexi. I have two questions, but in the interest of time, let me skip to his second one. What are your thoughts on Lopez and Amlos presume trip to the US to thank Donald Trump for helping Mexico out during the pandemic. Would it mean a win for Trump and a loss for Amlo. Carlos, what do you think Well, I mean, let me divide my answer in two parts. First of all, I think we need to acknowledge that for any Mexican president, not only Amlo, it was also the case with Peña Nieto. And it would be the case regardless of who the person is, you know, in the national palace in Mexico. It is extremely hard for a Mexican president to deal with somebody like Trump in the White House. No matter how you frame it, no, no matter how you want to present it. Trump is a very difficult character to deal with from a Mexican perspective. So, even though I don't I of course don't like it. I understand to a certain extent this sort of a peaceman policy that Lopez Obrador has had regarding Trump. And of course, if you look at Lopez Obrador's discourse, or yeah, when when he was a candidate, of course he has changed. But well, I mean, I think the office in many ways should have that effect upon a candidate and you know, make him more realistic in terms of what you can and you can't do. And certainly, you know, Mexico has nothing to win from, you know, Lopez Obrador getting in the ring in the boxing ring with Donald Trump. So that being said, and you know the need to find some sort of accommodation with this very incendiary figure is, you know, a must for Mexico. Foreign policy wise, domestic policy wise, you name it. It's just something that we need to do. I remember I wrote a piece some months ago about how, you know, particularly once the electoral campaign started in the US, it was going to be, you know, it's frog eating season for Mexico. And well, it's just the nature of the game and the place that Mexico has ended up in in American politics is a very toxic place. So we're just going to have to eat the frogs for the time being. Now, about I'm not going to visit and you know, I think there's of course the dimension of a photo op there. I think there's also, you know, I think that Lopez Obrador has tried to cultivate some sort of personal understanding with Trump that has served him well to a certain extent. But I disagree with those who have said that, you know, that might help Trump electorally or with the Latino community. But frankly, I don't think that, you know, Latinos are, you know, watchful, or are, you know, worried about what the Lopez Obrador position is regarding Trump. Quite frankly, I think that, you know, they have their own criteria and their own very legitimate reasons to decide their vote, regardless of what happens with Lopez Obrador and Trump. I don't think they're that connected to to Mexican politics, quite frankly, I think that the politics they care about is American politics or Latino politics or Mexican American politics. And in that regard, what I'm not does or doesn't do is, you know, anecdotal at best, it's accessory. And I don't think it will have a significant impact upon, you know, how the Mexican American community or the Latino community vote come November. So, we have about 10 minutes, Max, I knew this was going to go by fast, but it went by really fast because you both are so interesting. And one of the things that I appreciate about both of you, and I should have said this at the outside is your deep understanding of the US I mean God will see you, you've got a PhD here. And Alexandra, you had a high ranking position at the at the embassy and that's when we first met. And also you have the outsiders perspective, I mean you know at first hand but you also have this sort of outsiders perspective which is which is helpful but we have a little bit of time and I just want to end with two very tough questions, and if you could both address them quickly, because at its core I think what we often are talking about when we talk about the bilateral relationship is, what are we to each other. You know, it's always been a bit unclear Mexico US, you know, for friends, relatives, there's the old Allen writing distant neighbors, you know, allies like you know, and trading partners has been the, you know, the more recent one. It's a hard relationship to define right and when, when I think of my childhood in Mexico the US was the sort of big, you know, the imperial escape code that was very convenient for Mexicans to sort of, if any, it was like the all purpose excuse if anything was not going right well it's because what do you want we're stuck next to these, the superpower that abuses us and and one of the things that's been really interesting and Carlos. This was a, it was a presentation that one of your colleagues gave. When we did our first ASU see them and on one of your colleagues gave a great presentation on the decline in anti Americanism in Mexico and how it's like when it's escaped. Yeah, it's left the discourse of Mexican politics and, and I and I've been impressed with the discipline of Amlo to go there again we were talking about that. But in terms of like public opinion. Do you do do you do you think, both of you that we might see a resurgence, I may be already seeing it of anti Americanism within Mexico, and then on a personal note for both of you. I might even a harder question. Do you worry about the US like do you as when you look across the border at your partner friend pick your pick your noun. Do you feel like we're just not going to be a solid partner for Mexico in the long term. Can you can you can you make a distinction between fundamentally the country that we are in our current government administration that happens to be there or run the reflection of the other. Are you also pessimistic just on that very fundamental question of what the US is to you and to Mexico. So easy questions for both of you. So let me let me start by saying that I would say, because we have more than 30 million people, Mexican people in the US, I think we can say we're family members. We are, we have a large population in the US. And that is just that that's the most important aspect of it, I think, because people that's that's what's important right. And then all of the other things I mean the integrated value chains and the and the and also the cross culture insemination that we've had from Mexico to the US from the US to Mexico. There's a lot of dimensions in which we could, we could argue that we are much closer than we want to accept. And I think that's something that also says a lot about the future of of the country is more than the future of the relationship. There are two countries and I know Andres that you did a very inspiring work something that I've given a lot of thought to and I think Mexico should do the same there should be a project, mirroring the one that you did on the future of the American dream. And the, and the, and I thought that was fascinating because I think the US has to rethink itself in the light of the new conditions and the new politics and the new policies and the new world order. But on the other and the new economic reality for everyday people, which is I think much more of what that project was about. And I think it for Mexico, my question, my existential question would be, what is it what does it mean to be Mexican in the 21st century. I think we have a 20th, early 20th century answer to that that we've been dragging along for a century and a half almost, but we haven't updated with this new reality that we have which is, you know, a third of our population is in the US. We have by nationals by the millions. A lot of them are going to be repatriated and probably change the face of Mexico in the medium and long term because they lived some of the most of their lives in the US and will come to Mexico with different ways of living and doing things. But I think we haven't put up to date what what culturally we feel that is being Mexican. So I would say, yes, I worry a lot about the US. I would love for the US to go back to some of its core values, which I think are under threat. And that worries me a lot. I think we all around the world miss some leadership from a country like the US way when it was able to show the best behavior and the best values. But at the same time, we also have to be responsible for our national realities. And in that sense, I think Mexico and the US have changed each other dramatically. And we need to just bring that up to date to what we see around us. Well, I mean, what I was think I was trying to to to think about the image that you said, what do we want this relationship to be who who are we and who are we to each other. And I remember, I remembered a very vivid image of, you know, Ambassador Jeffrey Davido. You know, named his book about his tenure as chief of the diplomatic mission of the US in Mexico, not the beginning of the century. And it was, you know, he sort of crafted this little story about a bear and a porcupine and hedgehog and a hedgehog saying when I saw somehow trying trying to convey the idea that the US was to Mexico sort of a bully that we become kind of friends with but he's still a bully. But it's, he's also a friend. I remember that the encounter between these two, these two symbolic animals, in which the bear told the hedgehog, you know, I can crush you if I step upon you. And the answer of the hedgehog was yes but you will hurt yourself if you do that. And this captures wonderfully like the on the one hand the interdependence but on the other hand the asymmetry of the relationship which has been, you know, the key since it's very beginning. And in that regard, I think the relationship in a way is changing because of the politics because of the, you know, of the economics and because of the social transformation tool in the US. One thing that I always need to remind myself and maybe this is because I have ingrained in my brain this sort of early 20th century framework that Alejandra was mentioned. And the key is that, you know, it always breaks my little nationalistic heart to see that Mexicans in the US, the sort of relationship that they have with Mexico. You know, in Mexico we tend to nurture the idea that, you know, the deep down inside their Mexican and that their loyalty is with Mexico. And that is not the case and it shouldn't be the case quite frankly. I mean they left they live there. They have a relationship with Mexico. You know, they have family here they, you know, they speak Spanish. You know, they listen to Mexican music they drink tequila whatever right, but they are Mexican Americans. I think that should be thought of as an identity of its own and in Mexico we need to understand that somehow, you know, the Mexico and the Mexican government still think that we have the monopoly of the voice of Mexico. And that is so not the case, you know, Mexican Americans have their own voice. And, you know, we can talk about if they have really, you know, come together and become a force to be reckoned with or they are divided I think, you know, in terms of generations or in terms of income. You know, there are a lot of challenges in terms of Mexican Americans becoming, you know, together or as my friends in Univision, you know, have always tried to convince us of, you know, the sleeping giant is about to awake. But, you know, when in the moment of truth, they don't and they don't because it's not one sleeping giant. You know, it's very different to be a first generation. I mean, it's just, it's just how life works, you know, people start, you know, their Spanish is not that good. Their idea of Mexico is, you know, very watered down is very nostalgic. I wouldn't I would of course not question their right to call themselves Mexicans, but I would really challenge the idea that Mexico speaks for them in any sort of meaningful or significant way, you know. So in terms, I think what one of the things I am most interested in is to see how that diversity within the Mexican American community plays out politically in the in the, you know, in the middle or long term. And to go back to what you were asking about Andrew Paxman. Yes, I've been very surprised as well with how disciplined AMLO has been not to tap upon anti-American sentiments. But I also think that, you know, AMLO, you know, I have a lot of criticisms of AMLO, but one thing I'm not critical of is, you know, in this regard, his political instincts. I think that on the one hand, he's not doing it because there's nothing to to really gain from it. And I think on the other hand, he's not doing it because one way or another, he knows that that rhetoric will probably not have so much traction. We would have 30 or 50 years ago. I mean, the integration of both our countries in the case of Mexico has really meant that our image and our idea of the US has changed. And that change has survived. Even the Trump administration of the thing. I mean, I don't think Mexicans think of the Americans as that other, you know, menacing threat as we used to historically speaking. Of course, and with Trump, this has threatened the bully, the bully aspect. But, you know, Mexicans have families in the US. They receive remittances. They watch American shows. Many of them speak English. Many of them have traveled there. So, I mean, integration has really made it inroads in the Mexican, you know, heart and heart and soul, heart and brain, heart and minds, the hearts and minds of Mexicans, so to speak. And I think it has done so as well in the US, there's a sector of the American population in which this hasn't happened. But it's a minority. It's a big minority, but it's still a minority in the US. And I think we also need to take stock in Mexico for the long term that probably our best ally on the other side of the border is that American majority that has changed its image of Mexico as well. Well, that's great. I'm tempted to talk more about the Mexican American community and identity and how that's shifting and not shifting and where they fit in, but maybe we could tee that up for our next conversation. And I was also thinking about Andrew Sealy's great book, Vanishing Frontiers. And so I guess that's kind of the big question for the coming years, months, years, decades is this question of whether the frontiers will continue to vanish or whether we're going to see a reassertion of walls and boundaries and whether in reaction to the immediate crisis or longer term trends. But I think already we're sort of getting a sense. I think both of you really flesh this out nicely that, you know, those of us sitting in like our national capitals can't shouldn't get out of our bubble of thinking that the relationship is all about, you know, to presidents to governments to demonstrations that at the end of the day. And you both touched upon this quite eloquently. It's about people and how over time, we have gotten to know each other better and there's still a lot of work to be done in that sense, but thank you both so much Cardinals and Alexandra and thank you. Look forward to continuing to collaborate with both of you and hopefully in person sometime soon when, when we can, but if not virtually, and I also want to remind everybody forward to that my friend, really looking forward to that. And also want to remind everybody who's been who tuned in about the Mexico Institute Wilson Center Comexie conversation tomorrow at four o'clock with Ambassador Landau, go to the Mexico Mexico Institute at Wilson Center Web page to RSVP and hopefully today we provided you with a lot of food for thought to go in to that conversation tomorrow. Thanks everybody.