Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
■ President Donald Trump celebrates a deal to avert Mexican tariffs.
President says Mexico to deploy troops on Guatemala border
WASHINGTON REPORT
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s deal to avert his threatened tariffs on Mexico includes few new solutions to swiftly stem the surge of Central American migrants flowing over America’s southern border.
But the deal, announced late Friday, gives Trump the ability to claim victory on a central campaign promise as he prepares to formally launch his 2020 campaign.
“In the face of naysayers, President Trump yet again delivered a huge victory for the American people,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement, applauding the president for using “the threat of tariffs to bring Mexico to the table” and “showing that he is willing to use every tool in his toolbox to protect the American people.”
A joint statement released by the State Department said Mexico had agreed to
“take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration,” including the deployment of its new National Guard, with a focus on its porous southern border with Guatemala. Mexico, however, had already intended to deploy the National Guard to the southern border and had made that clear to U.S. officials.
Trump put the number of troops to be deployed at 6,000 and said in a tweet Saturday, “Mexico will try very hard, and if they do that, this will be a very successful agreement for both the United States and Mexico!”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Twitter: “Thanks to the support of all Mexicans, the imposition of tariffs on Mexican products exported to the USA has been avoided.” He called for a gathering Saturday to celebrate in Tijuana.
Mexico also agreed to an expansion of a program that forces some asylum seekers to return to Mexico while their cases are adjudicated.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the tariff threat “reckless” and panned the remain-in-Mexico policy as a violation of migrants’ legal rights.
“Threats and temper tantrums are no way to negotiate foreign policy,” she said.
Mexico’s foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, said he thought the deal struck “a fair balance” because the U.S. “had more drastic proposals and measures at the start.”
But Leticia Calderón Cheluis, a migration expert at the Mora Institute in Mexico City, said the agreement is essentially a series of compromises solely by Mexico, which she said committed to “a double clamp at both borders.”