Limits to Friendship

An unfettered, probing dialogue between Mexican and American political analysts on the complex relationship between their countries.

Few nations are as closely interrelated as the United States and Mexico. Few relationships between nations are so prickly. America’s inveterate problem-solving strikes Mexicans as clandestine imperialism. Mexicans are accused of ignoring the flow of drugs through their country; Americans are accused of saddling Mexico with their drug problem. Americans brood over the influx of Mexican immigrants; Mexicans worry that their culture and traditions are being diluted from the north.

These differences are now aired—and their origins made clear—in this landmark book by a former official in the Carter administration and one of Mexico’s most respected political scholars. In alternating chapters on foreign policy, economic relations, immigration, and social influence, Robert A. Pastor and Jorge C. Castañeda offer a multifaceted view of the ties and conflicts between their countries.