En tu idioma / In your own language

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Ap
La Jornada Maya

Miérocles 1 de febrero, 2017


On January 26th, President Trump tweeted that “…if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting”. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto did just that.

It is now apparent to me that neither the Trump cabinet nor his administration are ultimately going to change the equation given the President’s erratic personality and obsession with the wall, a prime element of his presidential campaign.

The cost of building a wall is exorbitant (calculated at some US$15 billion), and it is an expenditure the US doesn’t need at a time when its national infrastructure is in disrepair, the public education system is second rate in Trump’s own view, and Mexican migration northwards is in decline.

Thus Trump should not be the target of Mexico’s efforts.

The main audience for Mexico in this case is the Congress – the lawmakers who control the purse strings and thus control the President. The Republican majority in Congress is ideologically oppose to the kind of market manipulations that Trump is proposing – the 20 per cent tax on Mexican imports to the United States that Spokesperson Sean Spicer has floated to the media is anathema to orthodox Republicans who believe fervently in a free market and limited government intervention, especially when it could drive prices up for the average US consumer. Indeed, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham tweeted on January 26th, “Simply put, any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad.” Humorous but effective.

The cost of the proposed wall is an expense Trump’s erstwhile allies in the Congress may well reject, and it is why Congress should be the prime target of Mexico’s strategic communications rather than Trump and his administration. There are key issues to be discussed and negotiated -- NAFTA, immigration, drugs, money laundering, and myriad others that are vital to the security and well-being of both countries, and all require funding from Congress. Not only that, but a faltering US economy will have a political cost that the Republican Congress would have to bear.

One must remember that NAFTA (and the preceding Free Trade Agreement with Canada) were negotiated by staunchly Republican administrations, and the border regions that would bear the brunt of an economic downturn in Mexico tend to vote Republican. Mexico should remind orthodox Republicans about this fact every step of the way.

How?

Mexico has a network of fifty consulates in key centers in the US. Local constituents are going to lose jobs and economic opportunities should Trump succeed in cutting ties with Mexico. Local businesses are going to lose economic opportunities as prices rise and consumer activity diminishes should Trump somehow stem the flow of goods from Mexico, most of are the products of value chains in which American components and workers play a significant role.

As well, as US citizens lose purchasing power due to rising costs, local businesses will be the first to suffer. Local Congressional and Senate representatives risk losing their voters should economic hardships be visited on their constituents through Trump’s erratic trade policies.

Mexico should develop a public diplomacy strategy to push these ideas in vulnerable domestic US markets – those that would lose jobs in the case of a derogation of NAFTA by the Trump administration.

And if public diplomacy doesn’t work, then a round of targeted tariffs of certain US products from key Republican states by the Mexican government could well affect US producers and exporters of products to Mexico and convince Republican legislators to counteract any taxes or tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Mexican exports.

This could well serve to separate the Republican legislators from these key states from Trump, and set the President up for a defeat in Congress.

That would allow Mexico to trump Trump and beat him at his game.

[i]Mérida, Yucatán[/i]
[b][email protected][/b]