In Mexico, a cautious sigh of relief over Trump so far
MEXICO CITY – The worst may be over – though it’s not quite time to celebrate.
That seems to be the guarded consensus here more than three months into the administration of President Donald Trump, whose targeting of Mexico and Mexicans yielded profound economic, social and political disquiet throughout the country.
Not long ago, many feared Trump’s agenda could edge the nation toward economic ruin and even rip asunder the fabric of Mexican society. Trump appeared to have gotten into the collective Mexican psyche like no other US leader in decades.
But the doomsday scenarios have receded as Trump has backed away from his signature threats against Mexico on trade and immigration policy.
The Mexican peso, which began a steady slide as Trump’s fortunes rose in last year’s US presidential campaign, has regained a measure of stability.
“Although it would be absurd to think that things are fixed, everything indicates that the worst has passed,” wrote columnist Enrique Acevedo last week in Milenio newspaper. “The tension has diminished.”
The column’s headline: “The wall of discord,” a nod to Trump’s signature pledge to build a wall along the almost-2,000-mile border.
The wall seems bogged down amid funding disputes and a decidedly cool reception in Congress and in US border communities. Mexico adamantly rejected Trump’s insistence that it pay for the wall, a clash that led Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to cancel a trip to Washington just days after Trump’s inauguration.
That row marked a nadir in recent US-Mexican relations.
Here, the wall’s uncertain fate has become a symbol of the gap between Trump’s bluster and what he can actually accomplish in Washington – where the president’s campaign pledges on Mexico clash with many deep-seated political and economic interests. The two countries share more than $1 billion in cross-border trade each day.
“The first 100 days of the government of Trump weren’t as disastrous for Mexico as had been expected,” wrote Raul Rodriguez Cortes in El Universal newspaper. “At least until now.”
Even critics of Pena Nieto have credited his administration with a deft handling of a sensitive and potentially catastrophic challenge. Many have urged the government to be more confrontational, but Mexico City has opted for a low-key, albeit firm, approach.
It has been reported here that the foreign secretary, Luis Videgaray, a close associate of the Mexican president, has cultivated a strong relationship with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a close adviser.
Videgaray and Kushner, wrote Acevedo in his column in Milenio, “have succeeded in maintaining the bilateral agenda far from the presidential tweets.”
Mexican officials and business interests, with many longtime links to their counterparts in the north, have reached out to US industrialists, lawmakers and others to push back against Trump’s agenda. The Mexican advocates have often noted the potentially deleterious effects north of the border if Trump were to proceed with his plans.
Thus, in the critical realm of law enforcement, Mexico has stressed its considerable efforts to contain Central American immigrants along its southern border, amid hints that Trump’s policies could jeopardize that cooperation. Central Americans now outnumber Mexican nationals arrested on US territory for illegally crossing into the United States.
When two top Trump envoys, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly, visited Mexico City in February, their conciliatory comments were at a notable remove from their boss’ broadsides against Mexico.
“There will be no, repeat no, mass deportations,” Kelly said at a news conference. “Everything we do... will be done legally and according to human rights, and the legal justice system of the United States.”
Mexico promptly rebuffed a US plan to send Central Americans back to Mexico – rather than holding them in US immigration lockups – after they have been detained along the border and as they await decisions on asylum applications and other claims.
Even Trump’s oft-stated threat to pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement – which he has frequently labeled a “disaster” – has diminished. The White House said in April that it had now opted for “renegotiation” of the tripartite trade pact involving the United States, Mexico and Canada. That drew a deep sigh of relief here.
Trump cast the seeming backtracking on NAFTA as a gesture to “make all three countries stronger and better.”
But US domestic interests – especially in the agricultural, manufacturing and energy sectors – probably played a role in Trump’s seeming turnaround. US agribusiness and auto manufacturers have benefited greatly from NAFTA. US energy giants, meanwhile, see a potential windfall in the Mexican government’s plans to open up its long-protected energy industry.
Despite the lack of public invective from high-level officials here, Mexican authorities have left little doubt that they are ready to retaliate in key sectors should Washington cancel trade deals or impose punitive tariffs on Mexican imports.
“If they place a tax on Mexican imports, we are going to put one on theirs,” Videgaray, the foreign secretary, said in a private comment to lawmakers that was widely reported here. “But better, because we are going to choose which ones hurt.”