The pathway to friendship: Mexico-US trade relations, 1934-1940

• Main Author: Cortez, Julio Edmundo
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5122

The relationship between Mexico and the United States during the twentieth century has evolved from one mostly characterized by Mexican economic dependence on the US to one of interdependence between the two countries. In the 1930s, trade became a concrete expression of this interdependence and the link that eventually brought these two countries to friendly terms. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of international trade on the growing interdependence of Mexico and the US between 1934 and 1940. This thesis is structured in two parts. The first section deals with the factors which shaped American foreign policy towards Mexico; the second discusses the Mexican side of the relationship. The two analyses are pulled together in a brief conclusion. The emphasis of this thesis is on the Mexican side of the relationship, and the discussion of American policy serves primarily to provide a context for the subsequent analysis of the factors shaping Mexico’s treatment of the United States. Much of the primary source material used in this thesis was researched in the Banco de Comercio Exterior and the Secretarla de Relaciones Exteriores in Mexico City. Contemporary economic journals and newspapers were also an important source of information; the secondary literature on Mexican-American relations and on the government of Lázaro Cárdenas was also valuable. The thesis concludes that trade was the key element promoting cooperation and that the relationship between Mexico and the United States in the period 1934-1940 was not determined by nationalism, capitalism, imperialism, or any other ‘ism”. The limits of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico have not been based on some ardent nationalism, but on the shifting interests of the sectors controlling political power in both countries.