Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is firming up his foreign policy team, naming key players to oversee everything from security cooperation with the Obama administration to Mexicans living in the United States.

Peña Nieto is expected to officially name Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, a security expert and writer whose work appears in top intellectual magazines, as a top security adviser. He was an influential critic of former President Felipe Calderón’s drug policy, which left more than 60,000 people dead in drug violence and more than 25,000 missing since December 2006.

Additionally, Foreign Minister José Antonio Meade Kuribreña this week named Arnulfo Valdivia Machuca, a native of Peña Nieto’s native state of Mexico, to head the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, known as IME. The appointment drew praise.

“He’s a thoughtful person in what may become an increasingly important role reaching out to Mexico’s diaspora,” said Shannon K. O’Neil, a Mexico expert at the New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations.

A Mexican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also called Valdivia a good choice. “He’s from Peña Nieto’s home state, so that’s good because it hopefully means immigrants abroad will get more attention than they did under Calderón,” the official said. “Plus, Valdivia is smart, young and very bright. I think he understands the issues of Mexicans abroad.”

via Mexico’s new president is naming his foreign policy team | Mexico News – News for Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Morning News.