One hundred years ago, a crisis in Mexican-American relations changed the course of history. Front pages blared the news that would precipitate U.S. entry into World War I: the publication of the legendary Zimmermann Telegram. The American people—up to then decidedly isolationist—read the shocking news that Germany was trying to induce Mexico to invade the United States. Public opinion turned on a dime. So before we make an enemy of our southern neighbor, Donald Trump should be briefed on the lessons of March 1, 1917.
By the end of 1916, the Great War had been bogged down in the stalemate of trench warfare for some time at the cost of millions of soldiers’ lives. The German military chieftains were convinced that their only chance at victory was to let loose their feared U-boat submarines on the Atlantic with a mandate to sink any ship, whether enemy or neutral, in an effort to starve England into submission. The great risk in this tactic was possibly pushing the Americans to intervene on the side of the Allies if their own tonnage was sunk.
Seeking to take no chances on this front, the German foreign ministry proposed to secretly ally with Mexico, which might draw the United States into a conflict at home that would prevent or delay its landing troops in Europe. Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann cabled an audacious proposal for the Mexican president—the German militarists promised their putative ally that it could reclaim territory it had previously lost to the United States in the Mexican-American War: Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Unbeknownst to the Germans, the British Navy had succeeded in cracking its wireless codes and deciphered the Zimmermann Telegram in short order. British foreign minister Arthur Balfour shared the missive with Woodrow Wilson. So explosive were its contents that even Wilson, who had done everything he could to avoid war, knew that it was now inevitable. The administration leaked the telegram to the press. Not even the sinking of the Lusitania had swayed American opinion, but the very real specter of troops coming across the border was so terrifying as to have a frightened populace clamoring for action.
Today we have forgotten—if the rhetoric and policy proposals of President Trump are any indication—how critical our border with Mexico is to our national security. We need not only a peaceful, stable border, but a reliable friend and ally on the other side of it. As the historian Barbara Tuchman wrote in her definitive book on the telegram, the two thousand-mile stretch is “the soft underbelly of the United States.” Indeed, the last invasion of the United States—the only one in the last 200 years—was by the bandito Pancho Villa in New Mexico in 1916.
The risk of Latin American conflicts preoccupied early American foreign policy, most famously expressed in James Monroe’s eponymous doctrine declaring the Western Hemisphere off-limits to foreign meddling. From Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy to Cold War concerns about leftist revolutionaries to the Clinton administration’s intervention to stem the Tequila Crisis, it has been a long-term strategic American goal to keep Mexico stable and on our side. Mexico has benefited, as well. Closer integration with the United States in the wake of NAFTA allowed it to transition to a multiparty democracy and become a prosperous, free state.
Our economic bond is close and vital to both sides, with $430 billion in trade each year that Trump’s threatened punitive actions would disrupt. But the animosity is already doing our nation another kind of harm: Unleashing an anti-Americanism within Mexican domestic politics that will only thrive in the worsened economic conditions we are also creating. Trump’s clumsy and erratic posturing over the border wall has made it a question of Mexican national honor and is putting politicians friendly to the United States in an impossible position. Blaming the gringos for domestic ills is beginning to play better in Mexico than it has in years.
Mexico will elect a new president next year. According to a recent poll from Reforma, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a perennial left-wing candidate, is leading the polls and could be poised to win, while current president Enrique Pena Nieto has seen his approval rating plummet to 12 percent and his party poll in third place. Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro caused untold headaches for America and made common cause with our enemies. A hostile Mexico, with its more than 120 million citizens, is an even greater threat. In an emerging multipolar world, it could have its pick of geopolitical players to ally itself with, starting with China, Iran, or Russia, who could gain a beachhead in our own “near abroad.”
One hundred years after the Zimmermann Telegram, we must remember the strategic importance of our relationship with Mexico. The Trump administration’s current posture risks undermining, and even undoing, decades of painstaking partnership building. Even if you subscribe to the debatable idea that NAFTA has been an economic negative for the United States, the value of a stable and prosperous Mexican partner is invaluable. The costs of the alternative dwarf any benefits we obtain: The status quo here is both an economic bargain and a geopolitical necessity.
Richard Hurowitz is an investor, writer, and publisher of The Octavian Report.
