Mexico often imagines its relationship with the US as a partnership based on economic interdependence, mutual respect, and strategic cooperation. This narrative is functional for diplomacy & reassuring for national elites, but it is false.

This article by José Romero originally appeared in the December 19, 2025 edition ofLa Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those ofMexico Solidarity Media*, or the Mexico Solidarity Project.*

Mexico often imagines its relationship with the United States as a partnership based on economic interdependence, mutual respect, and strategic cooperation. This narrative is functional for diplomacy and reassuring for national elites, but it is false. It does not describe how the United States truly views Mexico. In the spaces where power is defined— security think tanks, military academies, defense departments, and realist currents of international policy—Mexico does not appear as a partner, ally, or nation with its own project, but rather as a strategic territory whose function is to serve the internal stability and power projection of the United States.

John Mearsheimer has been clear: great powers are not driven by values, discourses, or cultural affinities, but by the brutal logic of power. They seek to maximize their security, preserve their regional primacy, and prevent neighboring actors from developing capabilities that would limit their room for maneuver. Cooperation exists only as long as it reinforces this structure. From this perspective, the United States does not evaluate Mexico based on its well-being, but on its usefulness. Its value lies not in its development, but in its functional subordination.

Mexico is integrated into the international economic order, yet restricted. It is given access to markets, but denied strategic technology. It is required to maintain macroeconomic stability, but punished for any attempt at autonomous industrial planning. This is not an accident: it is by design.

Geography is a double-edged sword. A land border of over 3,000 kilometers, access to the Gulf of Mexico, immediate proximity to the U.S. industrial heartland, and control over migration flows make Mexico a vital space. The United States can abandon distant allies, sacrifice entire regions, or tolerate instability on other continents, but it cannot afford uncertainty south of its immediate border. Douglas MacGregor has stated it unequivocally: U.S. security begins outside its borders, and Mexico acts as a strategic buffer. It is not an equal; it is a perimeter.

Hence the central truth that is rarely stated: a stable, but not strong, Mexico is in the United States’ best interest. A weak Mexico generates unacceptable risks—mass migration, violence, disorder—but a strong, industrialized Mexico, with an independent foreign policy and a long-term national project, would pose a geopolitical problem. It would disrupt the regional balance and reduce U.S. control. For this reason, Mexican development has always been tolerated only up to a certain point.

Jeffrey Sachs has pointed out that the international economic order is designed to prevent middle-income countries from achieving full sovereign development. Mexico is a prime example. It is integrated, yet restricted. It is given access to markets, but denied strategic technology. It is required to maintain macroeconomic stability, but punished for any attempt at autonomous industrial planning. This is not an accident: it is by design.

The USMCA, nearshoring, and regional value chains are about ensuring that design, innovation, intellectual property, & profits remain in the North, while Mexico contributes territory, cheap labor, fiscal discipline, & political compliance.

The USMCA, nearshoring, and regional value chains are not about creating Mexican national capabilities. They are not about industrial champions or technological autonomy. They are about ensuring that design, innovation, intellectual property, and profits remain in the North, while Mexico contributes territory, cheap labor, fiscal discipline, and political compliance. It is controlled relocation, not development. It is subordinate integration, not convergence.

From this perspective, Mexican sovereignty is tolerated only as long as it is not exercised. It can be proclaimed in speeches, but it generates a reaction when it translates into concrete policies: strengthening national companies, strategic regulation, genuine diversification of alliances, and an active industrial policy. As Mearsheimer warns, powerful nations react when a subordinate actor attempts to modify the implicit rules of the system.

From a realistic American perspective, Mexico is not a historical subject with the right to transform itself, but rather a variable to be managed. Its function is to guarantee internal stability in the United States, reduce risks posed by China, and serve as a dependent production platform. A sovereign Mexico is not desirable; it is inconvenient. The United States does not seek Mexico’s collapse, but neither does it seek its emancipation. It seeks order without sovereignty, integration without autonomy, and stability without transformation. That is the reality.

José Romero is Director General of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), appointed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. CIDE is a publicly-financed social sciences research center aiming to impact Mexico’s social, economic and political development.

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