This book consists of papers, comments, and discussions presented at a conference on United States-Mexican energy relationships, held in late 1979 at Arizona State University. The purpose of both the meeting and its published record is to fill a perceived void in writings about Mexican oil, namely, the lack of “an authoritative and comprehensive statement on the realities” of bilateral energy matters. This volume purports to assist policy-makers, as well as to prove useful to scholars and interested laymen.
Unfortunately, it fails to accomplish these goals, especially that of helping policy formation. Too often, its contributors offer platitudes about United States-Mexican affairs—that is, relations are fraught with “ambiguity and fragility” (p. 3); immigration politics are “sticky” (p. 142); oil wealth will not assure “understanding and genuine interdependence” between neighbors (p. 195)—in lieu of providing ideas that will contribute to mutually beneficial energy policies.
A notable exception is Clark W. Reynolds’s proposal, in a bold, provocative chapter on Mexican economic development, for creating a “workers’-bond” program, initially financed by hydrocarbon revenues. Such a plan would permit workers, based on the length and quality of their performance, to obtain bonds redeemable for housing, durable goods, educational opportunities, and so forth, thereby giving them a share of their nation’s growing capital stock.
Chapters by Reynolds, Laura Randall, René Villarreal, and Isidro Sepulveda exhibit careful writing and thorough documentation. Others suffer from unabashed speculation, insufficient evidence, and visceral nationalism.
In response to the contention by most Mexican contributors that a “crisis” characterizes bilateral relations, Robert L. Ayres astutely makes the point, often overlooked by scholars and journalists, that: “Thousands of private interactions on a daily basis lead, in many long-term and indirect ways, to substantial congruence in values, interests, and perspectives” between the neighboring peoples (p. 217).
Despite its purpose, the book gives short shrift to the natural gas negotiations that dominated United States-Mexican relations in 1977 and 1979. These extremely important negotiations illuminate emerging bargaining styles between the two nations. Although Sepulveda furnishes interesting and perceptive insights into Petróleos Mexicanos, there is inadequate attention to the corruption that suffuses both the state petroleum monopoly and the powerful oil workers union. Nor is there a rigorous examination of the Industrial Development Plan, designed as the blueprint for mining Mexico’s black gold.
As is too frequently the case with proceedings, U.S.—Mexican Energy Relations is poorly edited, loosely organized, and unbalanced in content. Such postpublication events as Mexico’s refusal to enter the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the international shift to a buyers’ market for oil, and the United States Department of Energy’s purchase of Mexican crude for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve undermine assumptions on which several chapters are based.
