Cuellar: Mexico wary of new deal
WASHINGTON — After returning from a trip to Mexico City to discuss the overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement, South Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar said he could not get assurances from the new ruling party, led by leftist president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that its leaders would sign on to a new trade deal negotiated with the Trump administration.
Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, said he met with Alfonso Romo, chief of staff to Obrador, and Ricardo Monreal, the coordinator for the Morena party in the Mexican Senate after last week’s announcement by President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto that they had come to terms on a new NAFTA.
Despite their refusal to commit to the NAFTA deal, Romo and Monreal suggested that the Mexico’s leaders want to maintain the free flow of trade across the bor-
der, Cuellar said.
Cuellar said in an interview Wednesday that they didn’t say they are going to agree to the NAFTA deal, “but they did talk about jobs.”
“One of the things they want to do is create jobs, and I think they understand trade is the way to create jobs,” he said.
The agreement between Trump and Peña Nieto has set the stage for the United States, Mexico and Canada to sign a final deal before Peña Nieto leaves office Dec. 1. But Mexico’s recently elected congressional representatives, who gave Obrador’s Morena Party the majority, took their seats Saturday. And whether they will approve the deal that Peña Nieto cut with Trump remains in question.
Opposition to Trump, who has angered Mexicans with derogatory portrayals and demands that they pay for a border wall, was a key issue in the campaign of Obrador and his party. Obrador, like Trump, was carried into office on a populist wave.
“There is a strong nationalist element there, and they might not see (the NAFTA deal) as favorable to Mexico,” said Tony Payan, director of Rice University’s Mexico Center at the Baker Institute.
The stakes are high for Texas, which has benefited heavily from the lowering of trade barriers between Mexico and the United States. Mexico is Texas’s largest trading partner, making business leaders in both countries increasingly nervous as the relationship between their leaders has become volatile in recent years.
During his trip, Cuellar also met with the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who was once the richest man in the world and exchanged tough words with Obrador during the presidential campaign.
Two members of Obrador’s staff were present at the meeting with Slim, Cuellar said, adding the appointment of Romo, a wealthy Monterrey businessman, as chief of staff had reassured many in the Mexico’s business community that the leftist president won’t take actions that hurt the economy.
“They’re trying to send out a message,” Cuellar said, adding that Obrador “sat down with a lot of the business leaders near the election to calm them down.”