June 08, 2009 02:14 AM UTC

Mexico-US Parliamentary Exchange

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• by: Jared Polis

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

As members of Congress we opine and work on many issues of importance to our constituents. However, it’s also important to have a legislative focus. Truly effective legislators not only cover broad issue areas but also go deep in a couple areas of expertise. While I am active as a strong green voice in Congress as Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Caucus, and while I continue my efforts through the Progressive Caucus for universal health care and a re-thinking of our militaristic ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, my main legislative focus areas are education and immigration.

So too within the realm of foreign affairs, many members of Congress “adopt” a country and focus on building a specialty in that area. Many members are involved with “Friendship Caucuses” for countries like Switzerland (Rep. Tammy Baldwin), Norway (Rep. Earl Pomeroy) , Mongolia (Rep. Joe Wilson), Greece, Armenia, China, etc. I believe that each member of Congress should adopt at least one country and devote some time and effort towards understanding and being a part of that strategic relationship.

These “friendship caucuses” are a rare island of bi-partisanship in an otherwise fractured Congress.

For a variety of reasons, I decided to make my own personal foreign policy focus within Congress the US-Mexico relationship. I feel that this is one of the most important strategic relationships for our country, My ability to speak Spanish together with my familiarity with the country and its culture will help me serve as a bridge to Congress. I was frankly very surprised to find that there was no US-Mexico Friendship Caucus, so I decided to form one and am currently in the process of doing so and inviting my colleagues to join. I also signed up to be part of the Mexico-US Parliamentary exchange which is occurring this weekend. Five other members of the House of Representatives and myself, along with Senator Dodd, are en route to Seattle Washington for the 48th annual parliamentary exchange.

During my campaign, I had a difference with my primary opponents on our relationship with Mexico. Unfortunately it is popular Democratic red-meat to rail against NAFTA. While of course NAFTA has areas that we need to work to improve upon, I never blasted NAFTA during my campaign and quite the opposite, frequently talked about how the United States and Mexico need to have closer political and economic ties. We should work with Mexico to improve NAFTA, particularly with provisions to protect workers and our environment, as well as to build our overall relationship.

Unilaterally “cancelling” NAFTA, which is an existent albeit minority position in the Democratic Party (and I realize that some readers of this blog are in that camp), would have a disastrous impact on our relationship with Mexico, one of our most important strategic partners.

An example of the sensitivity around such issues is the mini-diplomatic crisis over the pilot trucking program. As part of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, a provision was slipped-in that cancelled a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks to cross the border and continue on to their final destination in our country. While the debate around the program is valid and there are many issues to consider such as vehicle safety, emission standards, wage considerations for drivers, etc, handling it unilaterally through the Omnibus Appropriations Bill understandably caused extreme ill-will in Mexico. According to the AP, Mexico retaliated with tariffs on American goods:

Then the Mexican Economy Department told a news conference in Mexico City that the new tariffs will affect about $2.4 billion in trade, impacting 90 agricultural and industrial products exported to Mexico from some 40 U.S. cities…

These measures no doubt hurt American working families including unionized farm-workers a lot more than they benefit a few truck drivers. The trucking program is a legitimate issue to discuss, but we need to address it in a bi-lateral way with Mexico. I voted for the Omnibus Appropriations bill despite the trucking language because the good outweighed the bad and the trucking language was a meager afterthought in a $410 billion bill, but I opposed that component.

Our relationship with Mexico is important for many reasons. The issues that we will discuss and this parliamentary exchange include immigration, trade, security, and the environment, and I look forward to providing a summary in my next post, as well as ongoing updates from time to time about the US relationship with Mexico.

Congressman Jared Polis

polis.house.gov