The most powerful foreign influence in Mexican affairs was of course the United States, whose proximity and overwhelming superiority in wealth, technology, and population were both welcomed and feared.
Robert Holden, 199443
During the Porfiriato, U. S.—Mexican relations became more complicated. Old concerns, such as exacting forced loans from American citizens, vanished as the Mexican government became more stable and solvent. New concerns arose as trade and investment increased. Trade between the two nations, which only totaled $4 million in 1855, soared to $117 million by 1907. The number of Americans living in Mexico steadily increased, reaching 75,000 by 1910. In 1911, more than 45 percent of total U. S. foreign investment was in Mexico.44
Smuggling into the United States from the tariff-free zones along the border slowly declined as U. S. industry began manufacturing high-quality, competitively priced goods. The railroad also allowed low-cost transport of U. S.-produced goods to the border area. This eliminated the incentive to smuggle anything into the United States.
Indians, bandits, and rustlers continued to raid across the border through the 1880s and 1890s, with both sides accusing the other of making inadequate efforts to secure the border. Diaz, realizing that a peaceful border was key to gaining U. S. support and investment, ruthlessly suppressed banditry along the border. In response to this effort to control border lawlessness, the U. S. order allowing Ord to engage in “hot pursuit” was withdrawn in 1880. In 1882, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty stipulating that “regular Federal troops of the two Republics may reciprocally cross the boundary line of the two countries, when they are in close pursuit of a band of savage Indians.” The signing of the 1882 treaty indicated that Mexico no longer viewed U. S. border crossings as the prelude to control or conquest of its territory. Tensions resulting from border lawlessness slowly decreased as the border area became more settled, and, especially on the U. S. side, land was fenced.45
Since France, Spain, and Great Britain lacked diplomatic relations with Mexico after the fall of Maximilian, the United States had little difficulty increasing its trade with Mexico. In 1883, when Great Britain was negotiating the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, an Englishman commented, “The commercial influence of the U. S.A. is being so rapidly extended that it bids fair before long, unless some stimulus and encouragement is given to British commerce there, to drive it out altogether.” By 1885, the United States had replaced Great Britain as the main supplier of goods to Mexico.46
U. S. imports from Mexico were chiefly gold, silver, ores, rubber, non-ferrous metals, hides, coffee, and fibers such as henequen. The United States shipped Mexico lard, provisions, beer and wine, canned goods, tobacco, lumber, petroleum, cotton, flour, coal, iron and steel, and cereals, especially corn. It was only after the First World War that capital goods and sophisticated manufactured products dominated U. S. exports to Mexico.47
In 1900, the United States supplied 51.1 percent of Mexico’s imports, while Great Britain supplied 17 percent, and Germany supplied 11.5 percent. During the next decade, as U. S. manufacturing increased and rail transport improved, the United States supplied between 55 and 60 percent of Mexico’s imports and absorbed between 65 and 75 percent of its exports.48
From the 1870s to roughly 1912, Mexico absorbed more U. S. direct foreign investment than any other country. to legal reforms south of the border that replicated institutional structures in the north, the border nearly ceased to exist as an obstacle to trade and investment. By 1910, the United States, which accounted for 38 percent of total foreign investment in Mexico, had surpassed the British, who supplied 29 percent. Mining, railroads, and the petroleum industry accounted for roughly 80 percent of U. S. direct investment. As U. S. investment increased, Source: U. S. (1976: 903-07)
U. S. investors developed a vested interest in stability and in Diaz remaining in office. In 1907, Secretary of State Elihu Root declared Diaz to be “one of the great men to be held up for the hero worship of mankind.”49
By the end of the Porfiriato, as historian W. Dirk Raat noted, “U. S. capital and markets had created the commercialization of agriculture, the proletarianization of the peasantry, and the expansion of an export-oriented economy.” In general, Mexicans’ desire for better-paying jobs outweighed any doubts they had about the foreign influences accompanying U. S. trade and investment. The higher wages Americans generally offered laborers led Mexican landlords to believe that “contact with the United States, and even with individual Americans, spoils the peons.” In northern Mexico, the upper class often sent its children to the United States so they could learn English and receive a good education.50
Others were not so pleased with the U. S. presence. Mexican historian Justo Sierra was not alone in voicing concern about the triple economic, legal, and cultural threat of “Americanism.” He feared that by blindly imitating American values and institutions, Mexico would sacrifice its cultural integrity. Mexican professionals resented their often being deemed incapable of filling jobs above that of clerk simply because they were Mexicans. Anti-Americanism came to transcend any single class or occupational group. The U. S. consul in Jalapa, John B. Richardson, commented on these anti-American feelings: “The Mexican loves his country and does not love the foreigner. He does not like to have his work done by foreigners at double the wage he gets. He is uneasy over innovation which he does not value or understand. . .” To this day, heated debate continues about the degree to which the Mexican Revolution was motivated by anti-American feelings.51
Along with American investment and trade came new ideas, the harbinger of even greater U. S. cultural and intellectual influence. Protestantism began to make inroads in cities. Young converts were sent to the United States to further their studies. Anarchism as a political philosophy influenced Mexican labor organizers and political dissidents such as Ricardo Flores Magon. Finally, the progressive movement influenced other Mexicans such as Madero.52
World History
