“I have a vision for an America that is an energy superpower, rapidly increasing our own production and partnering with our allies Canada and Mexico to achieve energy independence on this continent. If I am elected president, that vision will become a reality by the end of my second term.” — Mitt Romney
If Mitt Romney’s vision on domestic energy policy is bold, the idea that he can influence Mexican energy policy is downright reckless.
While the abundance of oil in North America is hardly a point of contention, access to the resource is not as simple. Mexican energy policy stems from the 1938 oil nationalization that essentially expelled American and British oil companies from the country. In subsequent decades Mexican oil laws only became stricter, prohibiting any form of private investment in oil and creating the ineffectual but strategically vital state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex.
There are two reasons why Mexico is unlikely to adopt modern energy policies:
1) Almost 40 percent of all federal income comes from sales of crude oil.
2) National ownership of oil is taught as dogma in public schools.
Many technocrats in both the outgoing and incoming governments — elections were held in July, Enrique Peña Nieto will be inaugurated as president on Dec. 1— know that Pemex is unsustainable and in dire need of reform. They also understand that any change implies a risk and the federal government cannot afford to put in peril its largest and most-reliable source of hard currency. Every administration since the 1990s has promised energy reform. None has delivered.
Risk-averse technocrats could be counted on to reform Pemex slowly and cautiously, but any initiative in that direction faces an even greater obstacle among leftist hardliners. Mexicans are taught from a young age that oil is a collectively owned resource upon which sovereignty resides. It’s unlikely that politicians act dogmatically when they oppose energy reform. Many benefit from Pemex directly or indirectly through the federal budget or the powerful oil workers’ union, and also understand that oil sovereignty is a powerful populist calling card when elections roll around.
A string of four technocratic administrations that have succeeded in promoting minor energy — and consequentially, fiscal — reforms, but necessary structural reforms remain elusive. The Mexican three-party system is difficult to understand and the formula for legislative success has remained elusive to even the craftiest of local politicians. The idea is unthinkable: that an American politician — let alone one with Romney’s stance on immigration — would dare to address Mexico’s most-vital and nationalistic issue.
In all likelihood, Romney’s North American energy independence proposal is not much more than an empty campaign promise. It does, however, hold some merit in terms of Mexican-American relations. The two countries have a long history of keeping relations civil by staying out of each other’s way. Maybe a little insensitivity and recklessness can break the counterproductive lull.
Rafael Bernal is a reporter for Medill News Service in Washington and a lawyer from Mexico City. He was involved in the inner workings of Mexican politics as a federal employee and candidate for public office in 2006.
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Interactive map: Where does American oil come from? Roll over the map to see how much oil the United States imports from each country.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.