Earlier this month, the president told a newspaper the solution to partisanship is politics and more politics. That’s how you work toward the building of agreements.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Barack Obama. It was Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto. As Washington has been mired in gridlock this year, consider what’s happening just across the border. One of the first things Pena Nieto did after assuming office just weeks ago was to announce a pact for Mexico, an ambitious set of reforms to raise taxes, increase competition and take on the teachers’ unions.

Now, it is one thing to announce a plan, quite another to get support for it and President Pena Nieto’s pact comes with endorsements from across the spectrum, the conservatives he ousted from office as well as the leftist Democrats.

While the world has gotten used to a torrent of images and news of drug-related violence from Mexico, another side of this country has been quietly developing.

Consider the facts: Mexico’s GDP is expected to grow by nearly 4 percent this year, twice as fast as Brazil or, for that matter, the United States. It is riding a manufacturing boom. Mexico is now the world’s fourth biggest producer of cars, according to the World Trade Atlas. Starting next year, new taxis in New York City will carry a “made in Mexico’ label.” Mexico is also the world’s top exporter of flat screen TVs. In fact, Mexico exports more manufactured products than all the other countries in Latin America combined.

via What we can learn from Mexico – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.