Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa (LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images)

Like one of those prime-time soap operas Mexicans call telenovelas, relations between the United States and Mexico have run the spectrum from brotherly friendships to betrayals of trust.

It was best said almost a century ago by Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz before he was ousted in the Mexican Revolution: “Poor Mexico. So far from God and so close to the United States.”

Alan Riding’s seminal 1984 book, “Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans,” chronicled this love-hate relationship, including a U.S. military invasion and controversial deportations under Operation Wetback in the 1950s.

History has indelibly stained the relationship with hope and animus. So Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s blunt talk on her visit to Mexico City this week deserves the high praise it got in the Spanish-speaking world:

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” Ms. Clinton said Wednesday. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

Mexicans were heartened by the fresh tone of respect and willingness to share blame for the drug-related carnage that resulted in more than 7,000 killings in Mexico since 2007.

The bloodshed, fueled by feuding drug cartels seeking dominance, began to escalate after President Felipe Calderón started a crackdown soon after he took office in late 2006. In February alone, 230 people were murdered in Ciudad Júarez, an industrial city of 1.3 million that borders El Paso, Texas.

During her visit, Ms. Clinton pledged millions of dollars for more federal agents, equipment and helicopters along the border. That builds upon the $1.4 billion in the Merida Initiative signed in 2007 that increased U.S. aid to combat narcotraficantes in Mexico, although Congress has funded only half of it.

Ms. Clinton’s straight talk and increased U.S. aid are laudable. But neither gesture will stop the drug cartels, whose ruthlessness defy any simple solutions. Long term, America simply must find a way to dry up the market for illegal drugs; that means a radical rethinking of U.S. drug policy.

The greater focus on Mexico is smart policy and smart politics. Critical issues like trade and immigration policy will continue to be overshadowed by drug violence and its tentacles into a long-festering problem of public corruption. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder soon will visit Mexico, and President Barack Obama will follow them next month.

Each day, more than $1 billion of legal commerce passes through the border by truck, airplane and railroad. The countries share 2,000 miles of border where people, rivers, roads and bridges provide exchanges. The U.S. economy directly affects the Mexican economy, including tourism and agricultural imports.

Mexico is a huge market of 110 million people with a great hunger for U.S. products — some of which are assembled in Mexico.

The North American Free Trade Act has imperfections, but the United States has benefited overall. Mexico is this country’s third-largest trading partner behind Canada and China.

The ties extend beyond geography. The Census Bureau says 11.7 million people in the United States were born in Mexico; the number probably is twice that when undocumented immigrants are taken into account. At its core, immigration policy is about jobs.

Mexico needs U.S. support to emerge from a bloody quagmire. As the United States struggles to rebuild its own economy, it makes economic and strategic sense to build the strongest possible relationship with the large democratic society to our south.