Last week, Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto began a diplomatic tour of Central and South America, including stops in Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. For Peña Nieto, who will take office Dec. 1, the trip was an effort to reset Mexico’s relations with other major players in the region.
Johanna Mendelson Forman, a senior associate with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the tour indicated that Mexico may begin to look southward as well as northward for cooperation on economic and security issues.
“Because of geography, I suspect that Peña Nieto will still have the closest relationship with the United States,” said Forman. “But it will not be the only relationship, and it may not be the dominant one in the future.”