State Dept Report
Humanitarian Assistance for Mexico and Central America
PRESS STATEMENT
ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
The United States is providing nearly $200 million in additional humanitarian assistance through international organizations and NGO partners in Mexico and Central America, bringing our total humanitarian assistance for the region since FY 2018 to more than $594 million.
Our assistance will support the humanitarian and protection needs of refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless persons, and vulnerable migrants in Mexico and Central America, as well as continuing efforts through international organization and NGO partners to assist governments by providing an array of support across the region.
usaid.com
History of USAID in Mexico
Development cooperation between the United States and Mexico began before USAID was created. The first formal agreement between the two governments to provide development assistance was through the Mutual Security Act of 1951. During that time, the United States focused on health programs, academic exchanges between U.S. and Mexican universities, food security, housing guarantees, and innovative models of entrepreneurship.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act, which led to the creation of USAID as the lead agency for all foreign assistance programs. USAID officially began work in Mexico as a continuation of the development programs under the Mutual Security Act, expanding its assistance to include economic growth, technology transfers, disaster relief, and democratic governance.
Between 1965 and 1977, USAID did not implement programs in Mexico following a global realignment of assistance efforts. It was not until the late 1970s that USAID resumed its development programming, focusing on population and family planning.
Within two years of USAID’s re-entry into Mexico, USAID became the lead donor in the health and population sector, providing assistance across virtually every program area, including service delivery, information services and communication, data collection and analysis, training, operations research, and contraceptive supplies.
A difficult but important moment for American foreign assistance in Mexico occurred in response to the 1985 earthquake. An earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale killed more than 4,000 people in Mexico City.
The U.S. response to the tragedy was immediate and massive. Within a week, over 1,000 U.S. disaster assistance personnel from a dozen United States Government agencies, local government, and private institutions were in Mexico City. First Lady Nancy Reagan and USAID Administrator Peter McPherson also visited to express their sympathy for and solidarity with the people of Mexico.
USAID demonstrated a tremendous capacity to deliver rapid, essential, and substantial humanitarian aid at a moment of great need.
The strong cooperation between the United States and Mexico has produced some key successes over the course of the bilateral relationship. One major success includes the establishment of the Mexican Conservation Fund, which was a new concept whereby funds, for the first time, were placed in an institution that the Government of Mexico did not control.
Subsequently, a multidisciplinary group of 21 environmental specialists, receiving joint funding from the United States and the Government of Mexico, carried out an extensive consultation process with over 250 conservation organizations in Mexico.
The result was three additional Mexican conservation funds, including the protection of the Meso-American Reef and the Gulf of California. The model has been replicated by more than 20 countries around the world and is now an international best practice.
Another successful model of cooperation includes USAID’s support of exchanges between Mexican and other governments to share information on various best practices to address common development challenges. USAID also invested in university and state-level partnership programs to support scholarships for indigenous populations. Other examples of collaboration include U.S. support to the Mexican Government to control tuberculosis outbreaks along the U.S.-Mexico border, the training of Mexican personnel in wildfire suppression, management of hazardous materials, and natural disaster management.
Today, Mexico is among USAID’s most self-reliant partner countries, the world’s 15th largest economy, and a functioning liberal democracy with high levels of capacity. In USAID’s 2021 Country Roadmap, Mexico exhibits high levels of commitment to trade freedom, business environment, and biodiversity and habitat protection.
It scores high in its capacity related to child health, civil society and media effectiveness, and export sophistication. The Mission continues to actively engage Mexico’s private sector through strategic alliances that encourage innovation and leverage resources to increase program impact, enhance sustainability, and replicate successful interventions across the country.
USAID selected the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) 2020-2025 Goal of “U.S.-Mexico Strategic Partnership Advanced through Mutual Security and Prosperity” to accentuate that this is a relationship of peers, not of a donor and a recipient, focused on challenges of strategic interest and mutual benefit to both countries, where burden-sharing is evident and foreign assistance can add value.
Biden is asking for Mexico’s help to stop the record
surge of migrants. Here’s what Mexico wants in return.
Mexico president López Obrador called on the U.S. to approve a plan that would
<><>deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries,
<><>suspend the U.S. blockade of Cuba,
<><>remove all sanctions against Venezuela
<><>and grant 10 million Hispanics illegally in the U.S. the right to remain and work legally.
A senior Biden admin official told NBC News that for some of these things, we would need Congress to act. “Biden shares the vision that we need to lift up the region.” (Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
U.S. goods and services trade with Mexico totaled an estimated $855.1 billion in 2022.
Exports were $362.0 billion; imports were $493.1 billion.
The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Mexico was $131.1 billion in 2022.
The United States has provided Mexico over $3 billion in assistance since 2008 to address transnational organized crime and violence, enhance the rule of law, and reduce drug trafficking.
Despite U.S. assistance, Mexico’s security situation has worsened significantly, with the country’s murder rate more than tripling.
Sep 12, 2023
Government Accountability Office (.gov)
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