Trump tensions could sour Mexico’s love affair with USA
Mexicans embrace America’s culture but not its new leader
When The StarMEXICO CITY
Spangled Banner was played at Monday night’s NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and Houston Texans, the sellout crowd cheered, defying predictions they would boo during the U.S. national anthem to show their unhappiness with the election of Donald Trump.
The respectful reaction underscores a divide between what people think of America as opposed to what they think of the president-elect.
Mexicans embrace almost everything American — from sipping Starbucks coffee to shopping at Walmart (the country’s largest retailer) to watching Netflix and NFL games. Even Thanksgiving dinners and eating Americanstyle barbecue are catching on.
“The level of affluence (in the USA) is what’s attractive to people,” Uber driver Juan Fernando Flanes said. “Trends in the United States become trends here.”
The affection for Americana isn’t extended to the presidentelect: Many Mexicans greeted his victory with jeers and expletives.
Their anger is a reaction to his labeling of some Mexicans who entered the USA illegally as criminals and “rapists” and his vows to deport millions of Mexicans, build a wall along the border at Mexico’s expense and renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement that has brought billions of dollars in investment.
Pre-election surveys showed huge increases in pro-U.S. sentiment over the past 15 years. The 2016 Latinobarómetro poll of Latin American attitudes found 76% of Mexicans had a favorable view of the USA. That compared with 15% with a negative view, the lowest level since 2000.
“The improvement in the image of the neighboring country has a lot to do with President Obama, who Mexicans hold in very high esteem,” pollster Alejandro Moreno wrote in the newspaper El Financiero. “No national politician has an image as positive as Obama,” who has a favorable rating of 60%, compared with just 8% who view him unfavorably, Moreno said.
Trump, by contrast, may start out as the least popular U.S. president since the 1840s, when James Polk ordered the invasion of Mexico, which cost the country its northern territory.
The question is whether the new president will reverse Mexicans’ positive feelings about the USA and whether he can blunt growing trade between the two countries that has been so vital to Mexico’s well-being.
Its economy had once been so closed that imported candy bars were sold as contraband. Now cross-border trade amounts to $1 million every minute.
Millions have relatives living in the USA, and American culture is ever more appealing.
American football is Mexico’s second-most-popular spectator sport, trailing only soccer. Mexicans fly to Dallas, Houston and Miami to attend NFL games. Tickets for Monday’s game sold out immediately, and some went for as much as eight times their face value on the resale market.
“It’s a way to show off your wealth,” said Esteban Illades, editor of the Mexican magazine Nex
os. Mexico’s growing numbers of affluent citizens have become obsessed with conspicuous con- sumption, he said. “They want to live in a country where they can buy everything they want.”
Since Trump’s election, the peso has fallen to record lows against the dollar, which crimps Mexicans’ purchasing power.
Anti-Trump protests haven’t materialized as in Europe. After getting over the shock of his victory, many hope a Trump presidency won’t be as bad as feared.
“We tell ourselves, ‘Everything will be fine, he’s going to become more moderate, he won’t be as violent as people say, he’s going to understand that the United States needs Mexico as much as Mexico needs the United States,’ ” said Guadalupe Loaeza, an author and columnist.
At least one fan outside the Azteca Stadium before the RaidersTexans game shared that optimistic outlook.
“The (Trump) transition is only getting started. ... It’s too early to say what he will do,” said José Manuel Álvarez, a political party operative who wore a jersey with Texans defensive end J.J. Watt’s No. 99 on it. “You can say a lot of things in the campaign, but things are different when you’re in government.”