Mexico dispatches one of its biggest Trump-haters to persuade Trump to halt tariffs
When you're in a pickle and you want to ask the U.S. for something, do you ship your biggest hater of the president to get what you want?
That seems to be Mexico's genius tactic, shipping its Trump-hating foreign minister to the U.S. to meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a bid to persuade President Trump to drop tariffs on Mexican imports into the U.S.
This doesn't sound like the sort of situation where being unpleasant is going to work. But there they go. Instead of sending a smooth diplomat to persuade the U.S. that the two countries really do have the same interests, they're sending a guy who attempted to manipulate U.S. elections and openly supported Trump's opponent to get the job done.
Here's the CBS report regarding Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard's upcoming visit to the U.S. to try to get President Trump to drop 5% tariffs on all Mexican goods coming across the border if Mexico doesn't take action to stop the flood of illegals rolling across the U.S. border:
"I inform you that the summit to resolve the differences between the US and our country will be Wednesday in Washington. Mike Pompeo will head up the US delegation. I will head the Mexican. There is a willingness to dialogue. We will be firm and we will defend our dignity," Ebrard wrote in a tweet which has been translated from Spanish.
What dignity? These people have lost control of their own country to cartels and are consciously choosing to fatten up the coffers of their country's human-smugglers, which find the shipment of illegals and drugs across an unguarded border a very profitable business indeed. The cartels aren't going to get the 5% tariff, the Mexican private sector will. But instead of doing something to protect the Mexican private sector from tariffs, they're coming to protect the interests of the cartels and calling it 'dignity.' Really?
They'd be better off just crunching down on the migrant trade and telling the foreigners to their south that they aren't going to use Mexico as their private launching pad. Halting the human waves has been Mexico's longtime policy in the past, and the socialist government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has the Mexican public onboard with that, given the public fatigue with migrant caravans fouling up Mexico's cities and bringing rafts of crime. Now something has changed. Based on this visit, it sounds like they want to keep things as they are, with cartels free to profit.
But as Billy Mays says, 'But wait, there's more.'
Maybe that has something to do with the kind of guy Mexico is sending to negotiate. Ryan Saavedra has found a few doozies of quotes that are bound to make this guy popular at the White House they want something from:
There's also this:
So they're sending an actual foreign election meddler who in the past has openly supported Trump's political opponents and been willing to use illegals and other migrants as a stick to nullify U.S. democratic elections to halt the ascent of President Trump for this big project in their own national interest. Never mind that he didn't succeed in stopping Trump, he definitely tried. And now he's in the U.S. to persuade President Trump to drop tariffs on Mexican goods coming into the U.S. as if U.S. trade is as much of a 'right' as manipulating U.S. elections is, along with shipping untold numbers of illegals. Rights, rights, rights - and 'dignity.'
Here's another one from this charmer:
"I've been asked why start Friday: because the relevance of the topic and the need to prepare arguments and a common strategy by different parts of the government demands intense work. We must also meet with Mexico's allies over the weekend. That's why I'm leaving now," Ebrard wrote in another tweet which has been translated from Spanish.
Such a bright guy, informing everyone of his negotiating strategy on Twitter even before he comes. Rest assured, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be ready.
But the content itself is interesting, too. Obviously going for a 'stick' strategy, reading the U.S. as an easy pushover. His strategy is to consult Mexico's few allies (remember: Mexico is on record as supporting Venezuela's Maduro dictatorship over Venezuela's democrats, which is contrary to the stance of all the other countries worth having as allies in the region). Who's left? Well, there's Maduro. So he's going to consult with Maduro? Or will it be Russia, a country that has always seen Mexico as easy pickings for manipulation? Or will it be Cuba, another famous manipulator of Mexican interests? They don't have much to consult and in any case, what would it be about, other than hating Trump together and trying to check U.S. interests? As if Trump couldn't slap tariffs on those places, too. Sounds like a winning strategy.
He's going to come in tough and fail in his mission of ending tariffs on Mexican goods. Sure, Mexico will retaliate. And with a bad socialist economy, (unlike that of the U.S.) , the Mexicans are going to like the result a lot less than the Americans. More tariffs, more illegals trashing Mexican cities on the way to the states - this sounds like a recipe for shooting oneself in the foot.
I'm not a big supporter of tariffs generally and I agree with Sen. Joni Ernst that it would be better to see remittances taxed instead of all trade (the tariffs, after all, might prompt a new illegal flow from Mexico, actually), but this is enough to make one support Trump's tariffs if for nothing else to ensure that Mexico understands the U.S. Right now, they don't. They think we're a kind of large Honduras that can be easily kicked around. And what we are looking at now is one of the most idiotic guaranteed-to-fail strategies ever seen by a country at odds with the U.S. All the Mexicans have to do is tell the cartels 'no' and halt the flow of illegals. What they're doing instead is setting themselves up for the most spectacular foreign policy failure imaginable, buttressing only foreigners in their country illegally and cartels.
There's an easy way to get what they want and a hard way, and their Trump derangement syndrome means they're going for the hard. In fact, it's not just hard, it's stupid. I'm getting out the popcorn to watch how bad this one turns out.
Image credit: Eneas de Troya, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0
Mexico’s President to Donald Trump: America Is for Migrants
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Poor people have a right to migrate to the United States, and migrants should not be stopped by force, according to a letter from Mexico’s president to U.S. President Donald Trump.
President López Obrador’s May 30 letter, provided by the Wall Street Journal, claimed a migrant’s “right for justice,” saying:
President Trump. Social problems are not resolved by taxes or coercive measures. How do you transform the country of fraternity for the world’s migrants into a ghetto, a closed space, where migrants are stigmatized, mistreated, persecuted, expelled and the right for justice is canceled to those who tirelessly seek to live free of misery?
The letter also suggested that poor Mexicans have a right to migrate into the United States: “It is worth remembering that, within a short period of time, Mexicans will not need to migrate into the United States and that migration will become optional, not compulsory.”
Obrador’s letter did not formally reject or accept Trump’s demand that Mexico block the huge Central American migration into the United States, nor did it directly denounce Trump’s threat to impose rising tariffs on Mexico.
Instead, it repeatedly claimed poor people have a right to move into the United States.
In one section, the letter appropriates the Statue of Liberty as a supposed symbol of legal migration, saying “The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol.”
In reality, the statue was built to show other nations how America’s Constitution and culture help create a thriving democracy. Since then, many progressives have tried to argue the status is a symbolic invitation to migrants.
Since 1965, when the nation’s immigration laws were loosened, the U.S. population of Mexican-ancestry citizens and illegal immigrants has exploded to 30 million. That huge population delivers about $30 billion in remittances to Mexico each year.
Obrador also suggested that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt endorsed easy migration:
President Roosevelt was a titan of liberties. He proclaimed the four fundamental rights of humankind before anyone else: the right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of religion, the right to live free from fear, and the right to live free from misery.
Additionally, Obrador argued that “universal justice” will triumph over national borders, saying:
With all due respect, even though you have the right to express it, the slogan “America First” is a fallacy because until the end of time, even over national borders, universal justice and fraternity will prevail.…Nothing by force, everything by reason and Law!
In the United States, many establishment figures also assert that Americans’ homeland is a nation of and for immigrants, not a homeland for 280 million America-born citizens and their children. In 2018, former GOP Gov. Nikki Haley told an Indian audience, “The one thing about America and what I have always loved is America is a country of immigrants. It’s the fabric of America to have multiple cultures. Multiple populations. Multiple heritages that do come into America that make it what it is.”
The second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin declared in February 2018 that “rejecting the notion that we are a nation of immigrants [is] to deny our birthright as a nation … to really defy who we are, what we are and what we will be.” Also, he declared, “We have a diverse nation, and that is our strength as far as I’m concerned.”
Progressives also insist that Americans must not favor their people, children, ideas, and traditions. In November 2014, for example, former President Barack Obama told cheering supporters:
Sometimes we get attached to our particular tribe, our particular race, our particular religion, and then we start treating other folks differently. And that, sometimes, has been a bottleneck to how we think about immigration. If you look at the history of immigration in this country, each successive wave, there have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, ‘Well, I don’t want those folks’ — even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans.
In contrast, Trump has repeatedly argued that America is for Americans. In his May 30 letter announcing the new tariff threat, he said:
As everyone knows, the United States of America has been invaded by hundreds of thousands of people coming through Mexico and entering our country illegally. This sustained influx of illegal aliens has profound consequences on every aspect of our national life—overwhelming our schools, overcrowding our hospitals, draining our welfare system, and causing untold amounts of crime. Gang members, smugglers, human traffickers, and illegal drugs and narcotics of all kinds are pouring across the Southern Border and directly into our communities. Thousands of innocent lives are taken every year as a result of this lawless chaos. It must end NOW!…The current state of affairs is profoundly unfair to the American taxpayer, who bears the extraordinary financial cost imposed by large-scale illegal migration. Even worse is the terrible and preventable loss of human life. Some of the most deadly and vicious gangs on the planet operate just across our border and terrorize innocent communities.…For years, Mexico has not treated us fairly—but we are now asserting our rights as a sovereign Nation.…The United States is a great country that can no longer be exploited due to its foolish and irresponsible immigration laws. For the sake of our people, and for the sake of our future, these horrendous laws must be changed now.…As President of the United States, my highest duty is the defense of the country and its citizens. A nation without borders is not a nation at all. I will not stand by and allow our sovereignty to be eroded, our laws to be trampled, or our borders to be disrespected anymore.
Immigration Numbers
Each year, approximately four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including about one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply stimulates economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of deflating wages by flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.
The economic policy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy furthermore moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.
U.S. Seeks to Block Migration Wave with Mexican ‘Safe Third Country’ Deal
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U.S. officials are pressuring Mexico to sign a “safe third country” deal that would help U.S. border officers quickly deport migrants, either back into Mexico or all the way back to their home countries.
“We want to work with Mexico to align on asylum,” Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters Thursday evening. “We need to be able to protect people in the first safe country they arrive in — really, all through the hemisphere, but certainly with our partner to the south.”
The terms of the deal would determine how U.S. border agencies could handle migrants who travel through Mexico to get to the U.S. border, said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies. The goal would be a deal in which Mexico agrees to offer asylum to migrants from the South, and also to allow migrants to return to Mexico once they are rejected by U.S. agencies.
Depending on the deal, the rejected Central American asylum seekers might be flown home without returning to Mexico, Arthur said. Once a deal is signed, most migrants would be deterred from making the trip because they would expect rejection at the border, he said.
The safe third country deal is needed, say, advocates, because the wave of Central American economic migrants have exploited U.S. asylum rules to overwhelm the border defenses — and often to help them get work permits while they wait a few years for a judge to hear their asylum pleas.
The establishment media largely ignored the safe third country issue on Friday.
In his Friday press conference, Mexican President Andres Obrador tried to downplay the danger of President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico’s exports if Mexico does not block the central American migration. Reuters reported:
“I want to insist that we will not fall into any provocation; we are going to act prudently,” said the president. “With respect to U.S. authorities, and President Donald Trump, we think that all these conflicts in the bilateral relationship must be confronted and resolved with dialogue.”…He said that Mexico would enforce its immigration laws but would not take actions that violate human rights. He noted that people were flowing out of Central America “not by choice, but necessity” because of violence and a lack of jobs.
Obrador’s comments came after his deputies released a letter to Trump in which Obrador argued that poor migrants have a right to enter the United States.
On Friday, McAleenan also said he wants Mexico to tighten security on its southern border and to take stronger action against the drug-and-labor-trafficking cartels:
Mexico must take significant action to secure their southern border, stop the unlawful flow of migrants across their territory, and attack the criminal groups preying on vulnerable migrants and profiting from these smuggling enterprises.…[On] operational security on their southern border with Guatemala. They have increased somewhat they interdictions of migrants entering Mexico from Guatemala, but it’s less than one fifth of what we’re seeing at the border on average. They need to step up their security efforts at their southern border. And they have natural chokepoints leading away from the border of Chiapas and Guatemala, into Mexico and on the way to the U.S.
Two, we need to target an attack to transnational criminal organizations. This is an organized smuggling effort. The logistical effort to move 100,000 people through a country every four weeks is immense. This is noticeable. It involves commercial bus lines that are controlled by criminal organizations. We need Mexico to crack down on these operations in their territory.
But McAleenan cited the safe third country goal twice:
We also have the opportunity to partner with Mexico to align our asylum efforts to ensure that asylum seekers are processed and protected in the first safe space they reach and not allowed to continue on to other countries’ borders. We need to take concerted action.
Currently, there is no safe third country agreement, and the U.S. offers a loophole through the border fence for migrants who simultaneously bring a child and claim asylum. The loophole has drawn 100,000 migrants a month in April and in May. Congress’s support for the existing loopholes also has created a thriving business whereby migrants temporarily trade their children to adult migrants in exchange for discounts from the cartel-linked coyotes.
Pro-migration advocates are trying to block any safe third country deal with Mexico. For example, Jennifer Quiqley at Human Rights First argued Friday that Mexico is not a safe haven for migrants:
U.S. officials are already sending some asylum-seeking migrants — approximately 6,000 — back to Mexico under the “Remain in Mexico” program prior to their immigration hearing in the United States. The program has survived one round of lawsuits, even as pro-migration groups highlighted cases of routine crime against the migrants who are remaining in Mexico.
Multiple business groups are opposing Trump’s tariff strategy, in part, because investors gain from the continued inflow of Central American workers, consumers, and renters.
For example, Todd Schulte, the director of FWD.us, highlighted Trump’s push for a safe third country agreement:
FWD.us was formed by West Coast investors, including Mark Zuckerberg, to help preserve the investors’ continued inflow of lower-wage H-1B visa workers, and of immigrant workers and customers.
International asylum law usually directs asylum seekers to ask for asylum in the first safe country which they enter. In theory, this rule allows the United States to reject Central American migrants who pass through Mexico without seeking asylum.
But U.S. law requires a formal “safe third country” deal before a migrant can be sent back to the “first safe country.”
For example, a Guatemalan migrant should seek asylum in Mexico under the “first safe country” rule, but once he reaches the United States, a “safe third country” deal would allow the United States to dismiss his asylum request and send him back to Mexico or offer a return to Guatemala.
The United States has a “safe third country” deal with Canada. The deal allows U.S. border officers to reject asylum pleas from migrants who transit Canada to reach the U.S. border. That deal has prompted little protest from pro-migration progressives.
The same deal allows Canadian officials to reject migrants who apply for asylum at Canadian border posts. However, a loophole in the U.S.-Canadian deal requires Canadian officials to consider asylum claims from migrants who cross the border illegally from the United States.
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