'So far from God, so close to the US': Mexico's troubled past with its neighbour

Donald Trump’s reported threat to use US troops to sort out “bad hombres” in Mexico revives a venerable tradition of gringo intimidation and humiliation which Mexico thought had passed into history.

The president used the language of a cowboy movie – arguably more Blazing Saddles than The Magnificent Seven – but to Mexicans the implication was all too real: the superpower bully was back.

'Bad hombres': reports claim Trump threatened to send troops to Mexico Read more

How else to interpret a conversation between Trump and President Enrique Peña Nieto which, if confirmed, will go down in diplomatic annals.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” said the US leader, according to a transcript leaked to the Associated Press on Wednesday. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

The menace and disrespect shocked Mexico. It was like entering a time machine and reading headlines about US raids to capture Pancho Villa.



“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US.” All Mexicans know the quote. A rueful reflection on proximity to a powerful, expansionist neighbour attributed to the wily dictator Porfirio Diaz.

The troubled history began soon after Mexico wrested independence from Spain in 1821. The young, rickety republic lacked resources and people to cultivate and protect its northern lands from comanches and US expansionism.

So in a blunder regretted to this day it invited US settlers to farm the land on condition they drop slavery, become Catholics and swear fealty to Mexico. The settlers rebelled and despite losing the Alamo-won independence, creating the Republic of Texas in 1836.

A decade later President Polk sensed a chance to extend the US south and to the Pacific. The 1846-48 invasion and occupation ravaged Mexico and forced it to cede modern-day California, Nevada, Utah as well as a lot of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, plus a bit of Wyoming.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mexican general Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa on horseback, circa 1911. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Mexico still reveres “los niños héroes” – the child heroes – who supposedly fought the invaders and then leaped from a fortress to martyrdom, clutching a flag, rather than surrender. The occupying marines’ green uniform reputedly prompted cries of “green go”, and the term gringo.

US forces returned in 1914, during revolutionary tumult, to occupy Veracruz. And again in 1916 to hunt Pancho Villa, a renegade warlord who had killed US citizens on both sides of the border. Despite a force of 5,000 soldiers with aircraft and trucks the Americans failed to catch him.

The US’s entry into the second world war warmed relations with Mexico. It needed Mexican metals and labour. The bracero programme allowed in millions to work in fields and factories. The tide turned in 1954 when President Eisenhower ordered Operation Wetback, a controversial policy which rounded up and deported an estimated 3.8 million Mexicans.

Relations gradually warmed in the 1960s and 70s, with treaties resolving various diplomatic loose ends, paving the way for what was billed as the greatest deal of all: the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in 1994.

It eliminated trade and investment barriers and transformed Mexico – opening up its economy to $1.6bn in daily cross border trade and nurturing a middle class while devastating traditional farmers and other sectors.

Mexicans became accustomed to US presidents hugging their Mexican counterparts and calling them partners. George Bush and Barack Obama did extend border security, including almost 700 miles of fence along the 2,000 mile border. But this did not disrupt what appeared to be ever closer integration, with Mexican food, culture and expressions seeping into the US mainstream.

Mexicans grumbled that Americans drew drugs north and sent weapons south, leaving them to pay for the drug war in Mexican blood. But the joke about being so far from God and so close to the US seemed outdated. Both countries were, after all, amigos.

Then came Trump.