So far as I can tell, Trump may have finally had his first extortion success in office. Trump didn’t cave, Mexico did.
Though, to be fair, that agreement doesn’t really say anything other than that Mexico will deploy its National Guard to the Southern border. It mentions other things, but no actual numbers or plans, just sort of vague principles.
The “to be reviewed in 90 days” part seems to be the main thing. Basically, it’s an agreement to continue negotiating for 90 days.
In theory, according to the document, this would be the end of negotiations - if we presume that the measures being discussed would actually reduce the amount of immigration within 90 days. But, as said, the only explicit measure it discusses is to deploy troops to the Southern border of Mexico. That may have some effect on preventing people from coming into Mexico, but it doesn’t prevent the people who are already in Mexico from continuing to head North. It will probably take a little over 90 days for those people to peter out. In the meanwhile, I wouldn’t expect any actual change to the immigration numbers.
And I expect that they knew that. The 90 day deadline is really a buffer for them to try and write up some actual goals - as in actual benchmark numbers - and get that down on paper. Of course, on the side of Mexico, it could just be a delay strategy while they prep to kneecap Trump.
But my guess is that they’ve actually caved and, having done so, they’ll continue to do so. They’ve just decided to be Trump’s chew toy, and I would expect Trump to ramp up taking advantage of them.
They’ve been trying to stop human trafficking for ages, it’s not as if they consider it a normal part of business; if they can finally figure it out, multiple other countries would like the recipe.
Will the US also send to Mexico people getting in from Canada (although I understand that tends to go more in the opposite direction, at this point in time at least), by plane or by ship?
Or, in the real world, Trump caved and Mexico provided a convenient excuse. I guess that counts as Mexico caving.
He had a loser on his hands and knew it. The Republicans were going to buck him on this so his team found a nice way to spin his dud. Mexico, for its part, has done and promised essentially nothing while keeping a foreign relations door open with the Trump team. I doubt it will do them much good, but good on them for getting something for absolutely nothing. Masters of the Deal, one might say.
Mexico has promised jack shit in reality. There’s a lot of strong but essentially vague, meaningless words about actions to be taken. Nothing concrete on how any of what they’ll “do” will actually solve any of the issues they bring up. Just “we’ll act tough on X and this time, WE MEAN IT!!!11!”.
So, congrats to Trump on finding a “solution” that his supporters (and absolutely nobody else) will buy. He could have accomplished the same with much less effort and thinking, but these days few people give him any credit for being clever or innovative.
With the North Korea document, I would agree. With the Mexican, vague or not, it’s still a pretty clear statement of “We’re going to do what you say.” It reads to me more like something that was signed in a hurry, to stop the click from ticking, than something that was a simple show piece.
It does mandate that Mexico take a specific action. If Mexico takes that action, they’ve folded.
Mexico will deploy its national guard throughout the country, prioritising the southern border. They…already do that. There’s nothing there.
They will ‘take decisive action’ to deal with human trafficking. Ok…that’s vague. There’s still nothing there.
They commit to work on closer cooperation with the US. Still vague and unspecific.
They commit to authorize the entrance of migrants (to Mexico) who are sent back from the US at legal ports of entry to wait for their asylum claims. They already committed to doing that. Nothing new. They also offer to provide healthcare, jobs, etc ‘according to its principles’, which is enough qualifiers to mean nothing.
They also commit to doing something different if the results aren’t what are desired. Well, shit. I know when things don’t work, I just keep doing the same shit and expecting different results. Glad to know they are smarter than I am.
So, basically a big nothing-burger that lets Trump crow about ‘winning’ without anything actually happening or changing. Wonderful.
Trump withdrew from NAFTA, negotiated its replacement, and before the ink is dry on the new agreement he’s threatening tariffs against Mexico. If I were Mexico I’d tell Trump whatever he wanted, and then not follow through. Trump clearly doesn’t keep his promises; I’d have no hesitation about making a promise to him and then breaking it.
Mexico may be making firm and sincere promises that they simply cannot keep. They have enough on their hands dealing with the drug cartels. And to what lengths they are willing to go to keep people even poorer than themselves from swarming in? We are America, and some of the shit we are doing to these people?
“Pity poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”
-Porfirio Diaz
Does it matter that the specific actions were agreed to months ago, and had nothing to do with Trump’s latest temper tantrum induced demand followed by ignominious retreat?
What Obrador agreed to was for Mexico to keep the migrants in their borders for now, which is easier said than done. In the short term, they’ll try their best to contain them so that they can get a trade deal. But they can’t hold migrants forever, particularly since they don’t want to stay in Mexico; they want to go north. And another factor is that it won’t be long before the migrants begin consuming Mexico’s resources, which is going to be a domestic political problem for Obrador.
BTW I’m beginning to call the ‘Mango Mussolini’ Presidente Salazar the II for the reports that show that the [del]POS[/del] POTUS is not being told of how several insane orders he made are being ignored and his lackeys expect that he will forget those orders. At the risk of making him remember, that seems to be the fate of the cutting of aid to Central America after how it was reported recently how simpatico Trump is with the new president of El Salvador.
“No wall needed” was unofficially conceded when Trump said he’d be busing (and flying) refugees to so-called sanctuary cities all over the USA.
If Trump is willing to transport people right into the heart of the nation, then he can’t really say they’re so dangerous they must be stopped (by a wall) from entering, can he?
(Of course he can; logic never stopped the rancid clown before! But the point is, his malicious ‘brilliant idea’ negated the entire argument than a Wall is needed.)