Beginning this January 2013, the United States began charging a new 2.3% excise tax on the sale of medical devices, acting as one of the many funding sources of the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) meant to provide healthcare to millions of uninsured Americans. Medical device manufacturers are reacting to this new tax in a variety of ways, including looking to lean operations by expanding manufacturing to Mexico. Attempts to balance the new increase in product purchase cost due to the new medical device excise tax being levied on medical device products, Co-Production International (CPI) is noting the increase in inquiries by manufacturers exploring nearshore manufacturing in Mexico.

Not so long ago, if you believe what you read in the papers and see on TV, Mexico was the next Afghanistan. It was poor, lawless, and plagued by drug violence, a failed-state-in-the-making whose problems and people would soon cascade over the border. In early 2009 a U.S. Joint Forces Command report speculated that, in the next quarter-century, Pakistan and Mexico could prove the most worrisome flash points for American security. According to a study by Roberto Newell for the Wilson Center, more than 60 percent of all stories about Mexico in major U.S. papers were negative in 2007; that figure had risen to more than 80 percent by 2010. A survey of U.S. attitudes toward Mexico in 2012 found only 14 percent of respondents called it a "good neighbor." Type "Why is Mexico so" into Google and the first four adjectives suggested are "dangerous," "violent," "bad," and "poor."

As US President Barack Obama visits Mexico this week, he may want to consider the new realities of the country, says Shannon O'Neil, from the Council on Foreign Relations.

President Obama's visit to Mexico is part of a long tradition of diplomatic relations between the US and its neighbour to the south.

But while many Americans feel that they understand the basic economic and social forces that drive Mexico, the realities are much more interesting.

Here five myths about Mexico, that have a direct impact on American foreign policy, are debunked.