A nation must think before it acts.
In a September 2001 address to the United Nations, Mexico’s ambassador Jorge Eduardo Navarrete noted that while “globalization, which is the name we have given to the way the world now functions,” has created new development opportunities, not all nations have been able to benefit from these opportunities. His nation would host the UN’s International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey the next March, he said,
to examine finance and development in the context of globalization “with the purpose of building a world alliance for a more equitable and participative globalization . . . without marginalization and exclusions, one in which poverty is eradicated and in which the well being and dignity of human beings is the central objective of national development efforts and of actions of international cooperation.
It is worth examining how well Mexico, one of the United States’ most important strategic interests, has been able to rise to the challenges of and share in the opportunities of globalization, and what it needs to do to overcome any barriers preventing it from doing this. We will look at Mexico’s case after a brief overview globalization theory.