US pledges billions in aid, aims at curbing migration

A $10.6 billion aid package from the United States to Mexico and Central America could relieve immigration pressure to some extent, Chinese experts said, but a permanent solution will require multilateral cooperation from governments.

The US aid aims to promote better security conditions and job opportunities as part of a regional plan to allow Central Americans and Mexicans to remain in their countries and not have to emigrate.

The plan was announced in a joint US-Mexican statement released by the US State Department and read out by Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in Mexico City.

“In sum I think this is good news, very good news for Mexico,” Ebrard said.

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waxed poetic about the plan to provide jobs so people won’t have to leave the country.

“I have a dream that I want to see become a reality ... that nobody will want to go work in the United States anymore,” the president said before the announcement.

According to the plan, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador will receive $5.8 billion in aid and investment “in support of institutional reforms, development, and economic growth”, while Mexico will get another $4.8 billion in development aid.

Much of the aid will be private investment coming through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and will not cost US taxpayers.

Pan Deng, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said the newly pledged aid can partially relieve the pressure from illegal immigration at the border.

“The aid means that if the illegal immigrants don’t want to go back to their own countries, they can stay and work in Mexico, as long as they don’t go through the US border,” he said.

“It’s better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.”

Cooperation needed

However, Pan said a comprehensive solution would require cooperation and negotiation from other stakeholders, such as the governments of Mexico and the three Central America countries as well as private sectors, from whom the investment may come.

Shen Yamei, a researcher from China Institute of International Studies, said the commitment may play a mitigating role while the future is not as optimistic as people assume.

“On one hand, it is hard to say how much the private sector can contribute,” she said.

“On the other hand, what the US President Donald Trump cares most about is the image he displays on solving the illegal immigration problem, instead of whether the problem can be solved.”

She said the immigration issue has been a longtime focus between Republicans and Democrats, and will also be a key bargaining chip in the future.

Meanwhile, Trump appeared on Tuesday to back off his demand for $5 billion to build a wall along the border with Mexico, signaling for the first time that he might be open to a deal that would avoid a partial government shutdown.

The US president would consider other options and the administration was looking at ways to find the money elsewhere, said the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.