MX US Interactions
Summary of Mexico-US “Interactions”
| 1819 | US relinquishes claim against Spain to Tejas (Texas) territory in the Adams-Onis Treaty |
| 1821 | Independent Mexico recognized by US and established diplomatic relations, with Joel Poinsett as the first ambassador. |
| 1828 | MX and US sign Treaty of Limits confirming Adams-Onis Treaty. Certain elements in the United States were greatly displeased with the treaty, as it relinquished rights to (Tejas) Texas. |
| Poinsett was initially sent to negotiate the acquisition of new territories for the United States, including Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, as well as parts of Lower California, Sonora, Coahuila, and Nuevo León; but Poinsett’s offer to purchase these areas was rejected by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Juan Francisco de Azcárate. | |
| 1830 | US Ambassador Poinsett recalled |
| 1835 | Texans revolt against Mexico. Santa Anna leads the attack on the Alamo. |
| 1835 | Republic of Texas declared. Independence was not recognized by Mexico, and the boundaries between the two were never agreed upon. |
| 1836 | The Republic of Texas makes specious claim that the Rio Grande is its western border some 150 miles south of the Nueces which was the claim of Mexico. |
| 1844 | James K. Polk elected president advocating annexation of Texas, California, and Oregon |
| 1845 | US annexes Texas which becomes the twenty-eighth state of the union |
| 1846 | Mexican Congress declares that a state of war would be enforced if the US laid claim to the other territories belonging to Mexico. |
| 1846 | John Slidell, Polk’s special envoy, seeks to negotiate the boundary dispute and to settle $2 million of claims against Mexico by American citizens, but Polk’s confidential offer to buy California for $25 million and New Mexico for $5 million were never presented to Pres. Herrera of Mexico |
| 1846 | Pres. Herrera sends general Paredes north with an army but Paredes returned to Mexico City and overthrew Herrera and assumed the presidency |
| 1846 | Polk orders Gen. Zachary Taylor to move US army forces from the Nueces to take up a position on the Rio Grande. Gen. Arista moved his forces north and took up a position facing Taylor across the river in Matamoros |
| 1846 | Eleven Americans were killed six wounded and sixty-three taken prisoner by a Mexican cavalry unit north of the Rio Grande which they gave Polk his fake justification alleging the attack took place on US soil. |
| 1846-1848 | Mexican-American War (“Mexican War” or “Intervención Estadounidense en México”) |
| 1846 | May, US launches offensive against Mexico |
| 1847 | September 13, the war ends |
| 1848 | February 2 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty gave the U.S. undisputed control of Texas, established the U.S.-Mexican border of the Rio Grande, and ceded what is now California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colaorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma,, Kansas and Wyoming to the US and US paid $15 million and assumes all claims of American citizens against Mexico |
| 1853 | Pres. Franklin Pierce through James Gadsden offers to buy Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua for $50 million. |
| 1854 | Gadsden Purchase is completed for 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2) of desert land from Mexico for $10 million to build a rail line through southern Arizona to California; followed by Revolution of Ayutla in Mexico, and President Santa Anna removed |
| 1859 | McLane-Ocampo Treaty negotiated to enable the building of an interoceanic route in southern Mexico. US Senate failed to ratify the treaty. |
| 1862 | US fails to invoke Monroe Doctrine, allowing France opportunity to invade Mexico and place Maximilian as Emperor. US does not recognize the Maximilian government and allows arms to be sold to Juarez government forces. |
| 1876 | US and Mexico cooperate to vanquish Geronimo-led Apache raids on both countries’ settlements along the border. |
| 1878 | US recognizes Diaz regime (1876-1910) that supports US investments in Mexican copper, oil, railroads. |
| 1884 | Railway line established between Mexico City and El Paso TX. |
| 1889 | International Boundary and Water Commission established |
| 1913 | Pancho Villa robs Wells Fargo in a train robbery in northern Mexico of $160,000 worth of silver bars worth 3 million today |
| 1913 | Wilson recognizes Mexico and Carranza adminsitartion |
| 1914 | Wilson embargoes arms to Pancho Villa |
| 1914 | Tampico affair: as a result of a minor dispute between an American admiral and the mayor of Veracruz and the impending delivery of German war supplies to the Mexican president opposed by Wilson, US forces invaded the city and held her captive from April until November. |
| 1916 | Pancho Villa attacks US Garrison at Columbus New Mexico with Americans killed |
| 1916 | Gen. John Pershing of the US enters Mexico with “punitive force” to find Pancho Villa. |
| 1917 | Pershing withdraws from Mexico having failed to capture Pancho Villa |
| 1918 | Zimmerman Telegram: Germany offers Mexico US territories if it will declare war on US, leads to US entry war against Germany |
| 1923 | The Bubareli agreements stated that article 27 of the Mexican Constitution would not be retroactive, US would grant recognition and Mexico would settle damages suffered during the revolution |
| 1925 | Mexican petroleum law made all pre-revolutionary land concessions null and void unless the “doctrine of positive acts” applied, with a limit of fifty year leases |
| 1926 | New York Times advocates breaking relations with Mexico over oil crisis |
| 1926 | Mexico and the US conflict over Nicaraguan presidential election and Coolidge sends Marines to Nicaragua and orders troop movements along the US Mexican border. |
| 1927 | The Mexican Supreme Court rules that subsoil rights obtained before 1917 were entitled in perpetuity and the US renegotiated Mexico’s debts on a more favorable terms |
| 1928 | US ambassador mediates end of Cristero war in Mexico that killed 100,000 |
| 1930s | Forced repatriation program of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, while hundreds of thousands more, wary of the changed climate, return to Mexico voluntarily. |
| 1938 | Pres. Cardenas nationalizes oil companies |
| 1942-1945 | US buys large amounts of silver to finance the war effort, as well as copper tin and produce; US loans money to Mexico for industrialization; private investors invest in Mexico. Braceros program brings Mexican labor to the US (4.5 million Mexicans are sponsored) |
| 1946 | Private US investment spikes and Mexico |
| 1947 | Pres. Truman visits Mexico City, lays wreath at memorial to the Heroes |
| 1950s | Private investment doubles in Mexico |
| 1954 | Operation Wetback: a forced repatriation programinitiated by Pres Eisenhower supervised by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS claims as many as 1.3 million were repatriated during the operation, but this figure includes those who voluntarily returned to Mexico under duress. |
| 1959 | Lopez Matteo recognizes Castro administration and condemns US Bay of Pigs invasion |
| 1960s | Private investment triples in Mexico |
| 1960 | Falcon project a joint venture between the US and Mexico brought water for cultivation in the lower Rio Grande Valley |
| 1965 | Maquiladoras, or “assembly plants,” are built in border towns to employ low-cost Mexican labor who will assemble goods for the U.S. market. Duty-free raw materials are imported from the United States, and when the finished goods are exported, duty is paid only on the value added. by 1992, plants employ roughly half a million Mexicans and export $19 billion, about 40 percent of Mexico's global exports |
| 1969 | Pres. Nixon initiates “War on Drugs” against transit of drugs moving through Mexico, with mixed results. |
| 1976 | U.S. concern over unauthorized immigrants grows. U.S. President Jimmy Carter explores options to overhaul U.S. immigration policy, including improving border security and offering amnesty to undocumented immigrants, but no action is taken. |
| 1978 | Oil resources expropriated by Mexico |
| 1979 | US president Carter visits Mexico, |
| 1979 | President Lopez Portillo refuses to support US boycott of the Moscow Olympics |
| 1980s | Mexicans emigrate to US for work |
| 1982 | Fifty-nine banks nationalized including subs of US international banks |
| 1983 | Pres. Lopez Portillo supports Somoza against the Sandinistas (supported by the US) |
| 1985 | Assassination of a DEA agent in Mexico in 1985 sparks outrage in the United States and bilateral cooperation is terminated |
| 1986 | Immigration Reform and Control Act enacted which seeks to crack down on undocumented immigration by sanctioning employers who hire unauthorized immigrants. The law also grants amnesty to 2.7 million undocumented workers already in the United States. Unauthorized immigration decreases drastically over the next several years, but picks up again at the start of the 1990s. |
| 1993 | US Congress approves North American free-trade agreement NAFTA with Mexico |
| 1994 | NAFTA goes into effect |
| 1994 | After Pres. Zedillo lets the peso float and devaluation follows, Pres. Clinton fails to get congressional approval of the Mexican Stabilization Act, but $20 billion loan from the US Treasury helps Mexico stabilize its currency. |
| 1994 | In February, the US begins a new law enforcement plan that increases border security and pushes for deportation of criminal aliens |
| 1996 | US law mandates jail time for some criminal aliens and grants power to local law enforcement in border states to uphold immigration laws. |
| 1998 | Pres. Clinton visits Mexico, signs a declaration with Pres. Zedillo committing for the first time to devise a joint strategy for combating drug trafficking. |
| 2000 | An estimated 7,000,000 undocumented immigrants, more than half of whom are Mexican, live in US President George W. Bush takes office in the United States and says that Mexico is the country’s most important foreign policy priority. |
| 2002 | Mexico withholds support for the war in Iraq by withdrawing from the Treaty of Rio |
| 2004 | Pres. Fox vows to improve trade relations with the United States, reduce corruption and drug trafficking, and improve the status of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. |
| 2004 | Pres. Bush proposes a guest worker program but meets strong opposition in Congress. Congress authorizes hiring an additional ten thousand Border Patrol agents, doubling the force to twenty-one thousand agents by 2010. Mexican migrants who used to return home seasonally now stay in the United States for fear of being apprehended by the Border Patrol. |
| 2006 | Pres. Bush signs legislation to build seven hundred miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. |
| 2006 | Drug wars in Mexico fail to eliminate cartels and lead to violence and loss of governmental control over time of several areas of Mexico |
| 2007 | Merida agreement: The U.S. Congress authorized $1.6 billion for the three-year initiative (2007–2010). The U.S. Congress approved $465 million in the first year, which includes $400 million for Mexico. |
| 2008 | US Justice Department report says Mexican drug traffickers pose the biggest organized crime threat to the United States. U.S. Congress fails to pass comprehensive immigration reform despite wide consensus that such reform is needed. |
| 2010 | Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Mexico City to discuss border security and counternarcotics efforts after the March 13 killings of three people connected to the U.S. consulate in the city of Ciudad Juarez. The first three months of 2010 see a dramatic increase in drug trafficking-related deaths, totaling more than two thousand. U.S. and Mexican authorities introduce a “new stage” in bilateral border cooperation, named "Merida 2.0" after the 2008 Merida initiative. The new plan expands aid to Mexico to fight drug trafficking and reorients focus toward improving social and economic conditions. |
| 2010 | US district judge blocks the most controversial elements of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, set to take effect July 29. The law includes sections that demand police officers check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and requires immigrants to prove they are legally in the country. |
| 2016 | Trump insults Mexicans |
| 2017 | Trump says he will build wall that Mexico must pay for |
| 2018 | NAFTA revised |
| 2019 | Pres. Trump plans to designate cartels as terrorists |
| 2020 | Mexicans could be included in a controversial deal to deport asylum seekers, |
| 2020 | Mexico to stop migrant group trying to reach US |
| 2020 | The US Supreme Court barred the parents of a Mexican boy shot dead by a US agent from suing him. |
| 2020 | Wearing face masks, Mexican protesters blocked the US southern border, telling Americans to 'stay home' |
| Thanks to Wikipedia, Council on Foreign Relations, US State Department, BBC | |