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Article: At Home Abroad.(reform of the Foreign Service is needed)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- November 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Why it's time to reform the Foreign Service
In the early '90s, American foreign service officers could not get enough of Mexican President Carlos Salinas. They marveled at his free-market economic reforms and vigorous promotion of the North American Free Trade Agreement. They were pleased he had done away with the Yanqui-go-home rhetoric that had long been a staple of Mexican politics. When Salinas' term ended, the United States pushed him as the next president of the World Trade Organization.
Then all hell broke loose. The Mexican currency lost almost half of its value in less than a month. The Zapatista guerrillas staged a rebellion in Chiapas. As the ...