Grabbing land from the Mexicans and then trading with them

From American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald White…

Before the conflict in Texas erupted, Mexicans regarded the United States highly. Many politicians wished to emulate American democratic institutions. But Americans did not appreciate how much more difficult and complex Mexico’s path to becoming a nation was as it sought to shed the bonds of imperial Spain. From the Mexican perspective, America’s determination to tear Texas from Mexico initiated generations of distrust.

These letters [to Julia, his future wife, in 1846] reveal his observant, artistic eye. While some soldiers wrote home disparagingly of Mexico, he marveled about Monterrey: “This is the most beautiful spot that it has been my fortune to see in this world.” With feeling, he described the “beautiful city enclosed on three sides by the mountains with a pass through them to the right and to the left.

Grant would come to believe the Mexican War was unjust—a large nation attacking a small nation—but he had high praise for the American army. “The men engaged in the Mexican War were brave, and the officers of the regular army, from highest to lowest, were educated in their profession,” he declared. “A more efficient army for its number and armament I do not believe ever fought a battle.”

The Mexican War of 1846–1848, largely forgotten today, was the second costliest war in American history in terms of the percentage of soldiers who died. Of the 78,718 American soldiers who served, 13,283 died, constituting a casualty rate of 16.87 percent. By comparison, the casualty rate was 2.5 percent in World War I and World War II, 0.1 percent in Korea and Vietnam, and 21 percent for the Civil War. Of the casualties, 11,562 died of illness, disease, and accidents. Thirty-nine men Grant had known at West Point died. Four members of his 1843 class lost their lives.

What did we get as a reward for our aggression?

On February 2, 1848, Trist concluded a peace treaty that the commissioners signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Senate ratified it on March 10, confirming American claims to Texas and setting the boundary at the Rio Grande. The Mexican government ceded to the United States New Mexico and Upper California, which included present-day Arizona and New Mexico, as well as parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. In exchange, the United States paid Mexico $15 million and assumed claims against Mexico by United States citizens. The Mexican Congress ratified the treaty on May 25. United States troops began leaving Mexico five days later.

After the Civil War and the Presidency, it was time to think about commerce with Mexico:

Traveling with friend and diplomat Matías Romero, Grant became convinced that investment of foreign capital would “put the people on their feet” so that “Mexico would become a rich country, a good neighbor, and the two Republics would profit by contact.

Think that the debate over the pros ad cons of NAFTA and free trade with Mexico are new?

Knowing of Grant’s interest in Mexico, in early 1882 Chester Arthur—president of the United States since the death of James Garfield by an assassin’s bullet in September 1881—invited Grant to become U.S. commissioner to draw up a commercial treaty with Mexico. Mexico appointed Matías Romero as one of its two commissioners. The commissioners quickly agreed on terms of a free trade treaty that would remove tariffs on U.S. and Mexican products. The treaty of reciprocity was signed on January 20, 1883, but needed to be approved by the senates of both countries. The treaty was defeated in both countries.

In the United States, protectionists decried the free trade provisions. Some in the United States and Mexico charged that Grant and Romero were involved primarily for their own pecuniary gain.

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