Threats toward Mexico predate Trump
By David Agren.
President Claudia Sheinbaum captured international attention with her response to US president-elect Donald Trump’s threats of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports unless migration and fentanyl stopped crossing the US border.
Speaking in her standard slow and stern tone at her morning press conference, and drawing on her predecessor’s fondness projecting moral superiority, she read a letter that she planned to send to Trump. The main takeaway from which was her threat to impose retaliatory tariffs on US exports.
It also raised some important points – albeit boilerplate in political economy discussions – such as tariffs leading to inflation and job losses in both the US and Mexico, and jeopardizing firms such as GM and Stellantis, which have operated in south of the border for 80 years.
The chastising tone of the missive was coupled with pointed criticisms of US guns causing mayhem in Mexico. Sheinbaum also claimed that the United States has a worse fentanyl problem than Mexico - something unproveable because Mexico scrapped its drug addiction survey. All together, the letter addled anti-Trump types the world over. Trump’s subsequent social media post describing a “wonderful” conversation, in which he claimed that Sheinbaum “promised to stop Migration through Mexico,” made her a defender of the patria for fans of the 4T (as López Obrador’s political project is known).
But Greg Sargent of the New Republic went further in crediting Sheinbaum with calling out “Trump’s scam … designed to create the illusion that his fearsome threats are needed to get Mexico to act.”
He pointed out – correctly – that Sheinbaum responded to Trump by describing how Mexico was already doing what he was demanding it do on migration. Sheinbaum said in her letter that encounters at the US-Mexico border had fallen by 75 per cent. That occurred, she wrote, because “Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants from different parts of the world who cross our territory en route to the southern border of the United States.”
Sargent points to articles – similar to this one in The Mexico Brief – showering a migrant carousel, in which migrants are detained, then bused to southern Tabasco and Chiapas states where they are expected to self-deport. He writes:
“The very idea that Mexico must be bullied with tariffs into cracking down on migrants is designed to imply that it’s doing nothing right now – it’s taking advantage of us, Trump might say – and only his fearsome threats can force it into submission. This massive swindle is getting lost in the coverage.”
In fairness to Sargent, he probably doesn’t follow Mexican politics or bilateral relations very closely. If he did, he would be familiar with the cynical social media responses to major security operations – or most any kind of action in Mexico – which follow bilateral meetings or, wait for it, threats from the likes of Donald Trump.
Mexico’s current crackdown on migrants followed a Dec. 27 meeting of senior U.S. and Mexican officials at the National Palace. Details on the meeting’s contents are scant, but the crackdown was quickly apparent to anyone paying attention.
Sargent wrote: “Some experts see Biden’s private diplomacy with Mexico’s previous president as a critical ingredient in making all that happen.” But he doesn’t say what preceded that diplomacy. Reuters revealed that the US closure of rail bridges into Texas prompted action.
On Wednesday, Mexico announced the decommissioning of a massive fentanyl lab. The same day, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said it had stopped more than 5,200 migrants headed for the US border. The INM is often shy about revealing such actions. Most Mexicans connected the dots: Trump threatened Mexico; the government took action on fentanyl and migration.
Threats – especially Trump’s threats – can be crass and unedifying. But threats toward Mexico predate Trump. And US threats will continue after he’s left office.