En tu idioma / In your own language

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Ap
La Jornada Maya

Jueves 26 de enero, 2017


Signing an Executive Order on January 25th, President Donald Trump said that the influx of migrants from Central America “poses a danger to both Mexico and the United States”.

He had kind words for Mexico and Mexicans, and painted the border wall as something that will benefit Mexico as well as the United States. He claimed that the wall would disrupt violent cartel networks as well as convince Central Americans not to use Mexico as a staging area for illegally entering the United States. He noted that a strong economy in Mexico is very good for the United States. He said he looked forward to meeting with President Peña Nieto next week to discuss these issues (although there are calls in Mexico for Peña Nieto to postpone his trip).

He did not say who would pay for the wall at the ceremony, although in a separate interview with ABC he once again said that Mexico will pay for the wall, although he would not say how he expected the payment to be made.

According to Trump, the US will increase the number of border guards, build more detention space, end catch and release, move quickly to deport undocumented people with criminal records, and enhance border security electronically. According to Spokesperson Sean Spicer, federal funding to sanctuary cities will be cut off, while so-called “dreamers” (those undocumented persons brought to the United States as young children and who have grown up there) will have to wait for further clarification of their status.

Trump signed this order on the same day Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray and Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo arrived in Washington for talks with the Trump team, and a week before Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is expected to visit Washington.

This announcement complicates any attempt by the high-level Mexican delegation to begin a serious conversation. The wall has always been seen in Mexico as an affront to Mexican dignity. The wall and the issue of who is going to pay for it makes negotiations far more difficult, and trying to paint the wall as a benefit for Mexico may not assuage the sentiments of Mexicans. They will demand a hard stance on the part of the Mexican government in upcoming negotiations.

Indeed, both Secretaries arrive in Washington after a tumultuous week, in which they sought and obtained Mexican Congressional approval for a negotiating strategy before departing for Washington. In their words, no deal is better than a bad deal, and Mexico will not deal from a position of weakness – a message echoed by Canadian officials this week. All major Mexican political players seem to have backed this position, including left-wing Morena opposition leader Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said that now is the time for unity.

Mexico and the United States are tied into security agreements with respect to fighting the drug cartels and stemming the flow of Central American migrants northward. This cooperation would likely end if the Mexicans felt slighted with Trump’s handling of the NAFTA file.

The trouble is that the wall addresses the wrong crisis, according to Seth Stodder, former senior official in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

Writing in Politico on January 24th, he said, “more Mexicans now leave the U.S. than head north, and border apprehensions are down a whopping 75 percent since 2000. Simply put, fewer people are coming, and our border authorities catch and remove most who try.”

Mexico has announced that it no longer wants to renegotiate a NAFTA writ small.

Mexico wants to negotiate a full package of issues that includes the wall, trade, investment, better salaries for Mexican workers, the treatment of Mexicans resident in the United States, ensures the flow of remittances, and covers an array of security issues.

Hence the Mexican government’s announcement that it would prefer no NAFTA to a bad NAFTA could put the US in a difficult position, but it will likely be Mexico’s game plan going into negotiations on the wall and other key issues.

[i]Mérida, Yucatán[/i]
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