Congressional Research Service

Congress has maintained significant interest in neighboring Mexico, a close ally and top trade partner whose political and economic situation has significant ramifications for the United States. President Enrique Pe a Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) assumed the Mexican presidency on December 1, 2012, after 12 years of rule by the conservative National Action Party (PAN). Pe a Nieto has enacted structural reforms and bolstered economic relations with the United States, but observers maintain he mishandled recent high-profile human rights cases and allegations of a conflict of interest between his family and a government contractor.