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June 2, 2019

Mexico dispatches one of its biggest Trump-haters to persuade Trump to halt tariffs

By Monica Showalter

When you're in a pickle and you want to ask the U.S. for something, do you ship your biggest hater of the president to get what you want?

That seems to be Mexico's genius tactic, shipping its Trump-hating foreign minister to the U.S. to meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a bid to persuade President Trump to drop tariffs on Mexican imports into the U.S.

This doesn't sound like the sort of situation where being unpleasant is going to work. But there they go. Instead of sending a smooth diplomat to persuade the U.S. that the two countries really do have the same interests, they're sending a guy who attempted to manipulate U.S. elections and openly supported Trump's opponent to get the job done.

Here's the CBS report regarding Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard's upcoming visit to the U.S. to try to get President Trump to drop 5% tariffs on all Mexican goods coming across the border if Mexico doesn't take action to stop the flood of illegals rolling across the U.S. border:

"I inform you that the summit to resolve the differences between the US and our country will be Wednesday in Washington. Mike Pompeo will head up the US delegation. I will head the Mexican. There is a willingness to dialogue. We will be firm and we will defend our dignity," Ebrard wrote in a tweet which has been translated from Spanish.

 What dignity? These people have lost control of their own country to cartels and are consciously choosing to fatten up the coffers of their country's human-smugglers, which find the shipment of illegals and drugs across an unguarded border a very profitable business indeed. The cartels aren't going to get the 5% tariff, the Mexican private sector will. But instead of doing something to protect the Mexican private sector from tariffs, they're coming to protect the interests of the cartels and calling it 'dignity.' Really?

They'd be better off just crunching down on the migrant trade and telling the foreigners to their south that they aren't going to use Mexico as their private launching pad. Halting the human waves has been Mexico's longtime policy in the past, and the socialist government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has the Mexican public onboard with that, given the public fatigue with migrant caravans fouling up Mexico's cities and bringing rafts of crime.  Now something has changed. Based on this visit, it sounds like they want to keep things as they are, with cartels free to profit.

But as Billy Mays says, 'But wait, there's more.'

Maybe that has something to do with the kind of guy Mexico is sending to negotiate. Ryan Saavedra has found a few doozies of quotes that are bound to make this guy popular at the White House they want something from:


 
 
 
 
There's also this:
 

 
So they're sending an actual foreign election meddler who in the past has openly supported Trump's political opponents and been willing to use illegals and other migrants as a stick to nullify U.S. democratic elections to halt the ascent of President Trump for this big project in their own national interest. Never mind that he didn't succeed in stopping Trump, he definitely tried. And now he's in the U.S. to persuade President Trump to drop tariffs on Mexican goods coming into the U.S. as if U.S. trade is as much of a 'right' as manipulating U.S. elections is, along with shipping untold numbers of illegals. Rights, rights, rights - and 'dignity.'
 
Here's another one from this charmer:
 
"I've been asked why start Friday: because the relevance of the topic and the need to prepare arguments and a common strategy by different parts of the government demands intense work. We must also meet with Mexico's allies over the weekend. That's why I'm leaving now," Ebrard wrote in another tweet which has been translated from Spanish.
 
Such a bright guy, informing everyone of his negotiating strategy on Twitter even before he comes. Rest assured, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be ready.
 
But the content itself is interesting, too. Obviously going for a 'stick' strategy, reading the U.S. as an easy pushover. His strategy is to consult Mexico's few allies (remember: Mexico is on record as supporting Venezuela's Maduro dictatorship over Venezuela's democrats, which is contrary to the stance of all the other countries worth having as allies in the region). Who's left? Well, there's Maduro. So he's going to consult with Maduro? Or will it be Russia, a country that has always seen Mexico as easy pickings for manipulation? Or will it be Cuba, another famous manipulator of Mexican interests? They don't have much to consult and in any case, what would it be about, other than hating Trump together and trying to check U.S. interests? As if Trump couldn't slap tariffs on those places, too. Sounds like a winning strategy.
 
He's going to come in tough and fail in his mission of ending tariffs on Mexican goods. Sure, Mexico will retaliate. And with a bad socialist economy, (unlike that of the U.S.) , the Mexicans are going to like the result a lot less than the Americans. More tariffs, more illegals trashing Mexican cities on the way to the states - this sounds like a recipe for shooting oneself in the foot.
 
I'm not a big supporter of tariffs generally and I agree with Sen. Joni Ernst that it would be better to see remittances taxed instead of all trade (the tariffs, after all, might prompt a new illegal flow from Mexico, actually), but this is enough to make one support Trump's tariffs if for nothing else to ensure that Mexico understands the U.S. Right now, they don't. They think we're a kind of large Honduras that can be easily kicked around. And what we are looking at now is one of the most idiotic guaranteed-to-fail strategies ever seen by a country at odds with the U.S. All the Mexicans have to do is tell the cartels 'no' and halt the flow of illegals. What they're doing instead is setting themselves up for the most spectacular foreign policy failure imaginable, buttressing only foreigners in their country illegally and cartels.
 
There's an easy way to get what they want and a hard way, and their Trump derangement syndrome means they're going for the hard. In fact, it's not just hard, it's stupid. I'm getting out the popcorn to watch how bad this one turns out.
 
Image credit: Eneas de Troya, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0
  
 
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