event

Pivotal States: Is the United States Overlooking Mexico’s Potential?

Wed. December 6th, 2023
Live Online

The U.S.-Mexico relationship is one of the most fraught in U.S. foreign policy. It is also one of the most critical. Mexico is the largest trading partner of the U.S., and the choices made by American and Mexican policymakers frequently affect both countries’ public health, ecosystems, and law enforcement strategies. Mexico can play a valuable role in a more resilient U.S. supply chain, and as a source of economic growth across the region. Yet the scourge of fentanyl trafficking and the influx of migrants across the U.S. southern border make for explosive politics about Mexico in Washington. Do U.S. policymakers have an effective strategy to address the numerous challenges that have poisoned U.S.-Mexico relations in recent years? Can they leverage the relationship as part of a smart nearshoring strategy that benefits the United States, Mexico, and the wider Western Hemisphere?

Please join the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program, Christopher S. Chivvis, for the next installment of the Pivotal States Series and a discussion of Washington’s strategic alternatives in its relations with Mexico with Vanda Felbab-Brown and Shannon O’Neil. Tino Cuéllar, president of the Carnegie Endowment, will provide introductory remarks.

For past episodes from our series, click here.

Political ReformDemocracyEconomyTradeClimate ChangeForeign PolicyNorth AmericaUnited StatesSouth America
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar

President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar is the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, he has served three U.S. presidential administrations at the White House and in federal agencies, and was the Stanley Morrison Professor at Stanford University, where he held appointments in law, political science, and international affairs and led the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is also the director of Brookings’ Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings. Previously, she was also the co-director of the Opioid Crisis in America: Domestic and International Dimensions. Dr. Felbab-Brown is an expert on international and internal conflicts, insurgency, terrorism, urban violence, and illicit economies. Her fieldwork has covered Afghanistan, South Asia, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Andean region, Mexico, Iraq, Somalia and the Horn of Africa, Nigeria, and other African regions.

Shannon K. O'Neil

Shannon K. O'Neil is the Vice President of Studies and Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on trade, supply chains, Mexico, and the Americas, and has taught at Harvard and Columbia Universities. O'Neil has lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina, where her career began in emerging markets finance before turning to policy. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and an author of two books: Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead, on U.S. relations with Mexico, and her latest, The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter.

Christopher S. Chivvis

Senior Fellow and Director, American Statecraft Program

Christopher S. Chivvis is the director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.