Following his visits to Europe and the Middle East, President Obama is making another foreign trip this week -- and while this voyage may not command the same level of global attention, it carries a great deal of potential importance.
That's because Obama's itinerary takes him through our own neighborhood. He starts with a two-day visit to Mexico, and then goes to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas, where he will meet with his counterparts from throughout the hemisphere.
Obama's tour comes at a time when the world to our immediate south demands an ever-greater share of our attention. Mexico is embroiled in an internal drug war -- an intensely violent conflict fueled by American guns and, more fundamentally, American addictions.
In Cuba, Fidel Castro's slow fade from history creates new opportunities and uncertainties for the United States. At the other end of the Caribbean, Venezuela continues to oppose Washington's interests at every available turn.
These and other regional challenges strongly suggest the need for an updated diplomatic approach. In an administration that has named high-profile "special envoys" to handle such critical matters as Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is worth seriously considering the addition of at least one more: a special envoy for Mexico and the Caribbean Basin.
True, Obama has already named a new "czar" for the U.S.-Mexico border, Alan Bersin, but an envoy with a somewhat broader geographical territory is needed to get at the most fundamental issues bedeviling this part of the world.
The need for such an envoy derives from the severity and proximity of the challenges emerging from the region -- but also from the huge gains the United States stands to achieve if it can establish itself as a constructive partner to its southern neighbors.
Mexico alone offers ample reason for the creation of a new, highly empowered U.S. envoy. Americans seldom appreciate just how blessed we have been to have a peaceful, stable southern frontier throughout most of our history. In recent decades, however, the U.S.-Mexico relationship has been vexed by two deeply troublesome issues: illegal immigration and the narcotics trade.
The presence of some 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States -- roughly 80 percent of them from Latin America, mainly Mexico and Central America -- has made many Americans feel, with good reason, that we have lost control of our borders, our labor market, and our immigration process.
There is no way to address these concerns without a deeper, fuller diplomatic engagement with Mexico -- a nation whose economy has become increasingly dependent upon U.S. dollars sent home by Mexicans working north of the border.
Just as U.S. demand for undocumented, low-cost labor has created the illegal-immigration problem, so too has our appetite for narcotics stoked a vicious armed struggle within Mexico. President Felipe Calderón's government faces enormous challenges in its campaign against increasingly brazen and well-armed drug gangs, who have bought off, intimidated, or assassinated a depressingly large number of the public officials assigned to stop them.
The Obama administration has an opportunity to demonstrate an unprecedented U.S. commitment to our relationship with Mexico. Yet we must also recognize that issues such as illegal immigration and the drug trade are inherently regional, and that we need a diplomatic strategy that takes into account not only Mexico, but Central America and the Caribbean as well.
The appointment of a new special envoy -- a man or woman comparable in stature to those luminaries appointed to oversee our vital interests on the other side of the globe -- would send a timely signal that the United States is finally, fully committed to its own region.
