I summarized my book on Mexico with these alternatives in 2013. Alternatives Three and Four below are now in play as President Trump’s statements about Mexico from Tuesday, November 26, 2019 reach world media.

Reprieve
World economy rebounds. Oil prices rise to $200 a barrel, Mexico permits foreign investments and spins off PEMEX which modernizes engineering, refining and exploration. Oil discoveries increase as does production. Corruption is curtailed and profits soar. With job growth fewer young men are lured into the cartels. Situation stabilizes to a significant degree.

Collapse in Progress
Oil plays out in Mexico’s top producing fields, Mexico cedes control over the south and north of the country as the capital is consumed with providing services and order to the 25 million in Mexico City, and 20 million refugees head to the northern cities and the United States. Millions will come to Texas alone. Mexico is a failed state with guerilla bands controlling much of the countryside and several of the larger low-income neighborhoods in Mexico City. Cartels use tactics like narcobloqueos of stealing 18 wheelers and stopping them on streets to create traffic jams and undermine civic trust. Staged attacks on American border cities occur with regular frequency and local police are overwhelmed facing cartels that are better organized, funded and equipped. American border cities are inundated with refugees and violent gangs. Residents in all Texas cities as well as Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago and most southern Californian cities now like Mexico City fear kidnapping and ransom.

American Protectorate
Cartels use hit squads (Mexican sicarios) to attack American law enforcement in border cities on both sides. The United States intervenes with military forces as it has done in Haiti and creates a protectorate for the Mexican Federal government south to Monterrey, Saltillo and Durango. The traditional northern antipathy toward the chilangos of Mexico City grows and a process of tying the northern Mexican states closely to the American Southwest accelerates. Many in northern Mexico openly call for the U. S. to annex them with Monterrey as the capital of the Mexican states seeking admission to the Union. Leftist and nationalistic mobs burn and sack the American Embassy in Mexico City.

Revival of Pax Americana
American economy revives and joint American and Mexican efforts suppress cartel activity with attendant boosts in tourism, maquilas and domestic growth. America sharply reduces illegal drug consumption. Mexico increases its historical ties with Central America and opens the region to the south to economic growth and channels American technological knowhow through all of Latin America. Mexican migration returns to Mexico and both Mexicans and Americans increase investment and ties throughout Latin America.