Notwithstanding the substantial differences in size and wealth of the national economies, there are significant areas of comparability between Mexican and United States agricultures. In this paper, essential elements of the national agricultural structures for both the United States and Mexico and the currently predominant policy issues that emanate from these structures and from announced societal goals are sketched. Following the establishment of these bases, areas of competition and complementarity are explored as well as the technological elements that cross national boundaries and that are and have been affecting the agricultural sectors and individual well-being both in the United States and in Mexico. The discussion will concentrate most heavily on the Mexican experience.

In June 1977, Argentine army forces in Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Missiones went on alert; while across the Rio Uruguay, Brazilian garrisons throughout Rio Grande do Sul readied themselves. The nerve center at Santa Maria vibrated with activity and even friendly military observers were warned away.

Some months previously the book El Espacio Argentino by Pablo R. Sanz had been published in Argentina outlining various hypotheses of how a war with Brazil might be conducted (Sanz, 1976: 335-351). The book had been circulated through the Brazilian general staff. Although it carried nothing new for the intelligence services, its publication was taken as an indication of Argentine attitudes.

In recent years Latin American countries have become a principal source of narcotic drugs for the United States market. Mexico, once the fount of 85% of the heroin consumed by American addicts, still supplies approximately 30% of the drug. Peru and Bolivia grow a combined total of 60 million kilos of coca leaf annually, more than twice the amount needed for legitimate use. The remainder is either processed into cocaine for direct shipment abroad or smuggled in base form through Ecuador into Colombia, where chemists distill tons of the prized white powder that sells for $100 gram in diluted form on the streets of Chicago, Montreal, and Frankfurt. Colombia also surpassed Mexico in the late 1970s in marijuana production and currently holds the dubious honor of being the world's leading manufacturer of illicit methaqualone. Methaqualone base, originally smuggled in from Hungary, is currently believed to originate in mainland China.

The socioeconomic behavior and belief systems of industrial elites in Latin America have received considerable attention from social scientists, but research on the political ideology and activities of these important groups has been surprisingly limited. The socioeconomic literature has focused on the development or underdevelopment of entrepreneurial attitudes and values among Latin American industrialists. The major conclusions, documented by considerable quantitative research, are that industrial entrepreneurship in Latin America has been inhibited by international and domestic structural factors. It is accepted that national industrial elites in general tend to resist economic change and innovation, prefer the maintenance of traditional values such as family ownership, paternalistic labor relations, and laborintensive, low-technology means of production. National industrial elites are furthermore dominated by "internationalized" entrepreneurs and direct state investment.

The pivotal role energy plays in national economics not only converts the access to sources of supply into a vivid issue of foreign policy concern, but also causes an understandable preoccupation with investment capabilities and self-sufficiency. A report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1974 predicted a bright future for nuclear energy in the i developing countries and encouraged use of this form of energy after numerous field studies.

A nation that commits itself to nuclear energy by purchasing nuclear power-generating technology but not fuel cycle facilities incurs the risk of becoming dependent upon the supplier country because a quick switch to alternative sources of supply is difficult in cases of curtailment of fuel.