Mexico-U.S. Relations: Mexico's Government Needs to Counter Donald Trump
For eight months, Donald Trump has been insulting Mexico, taking advantage of the complicit silence of those who govern. The stridency and silence are a warning that arteries in the relationship are blocked. On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump used Mexico to cement his path toward the Republican nomination. The multimillionaire did not make distinctions. He accused all of Mexico of sending the United States "drugs," "criminals," and "rapists." He had a spark of magnanimity when he added that "some (Mexicans) are good people." His solution: build a wall, which Mexicans will "happily" pay for. Eight months passed, during which Trump continued attacking us. Finally, the Secretary of Foreign Relations for the Peña Nieto government, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, reacted. But instead of calling a press conference, she settled for giving three adjectives to the Washington Post: she accused the multimillionaire of being "ignorant" and "racist" and called the wall "absurd." Vice President Joe Biden, on tour in Mexico, quietly added that Trump's opinions were not shared by a majority of the American people. Too late and too little. The United States has a paranoid cultural vein that flows during stormy times. The Bolshevik victory in 1917 triggered the "Red Scare" which was the compass for its domestic and international policy until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the 21st century, uncertainty and fear have globalized, and, in this environment, Trump seized on the anti-Mexican vein that lies deep in the American psyche. We are mixed race, speak English with an accent, have a corrupt government and the border is infested with bandits. We took advantage of the land border to invade their land and pollute their race. He is creating a harmful "brown people panic." The Peña government's silence has several explanations. One is the belief by all Mexican leaders that they will always be supported by Washington. History confirms it. In 1927, ambassador Dwight Morrow declined to intervene with the Mexican government in favor of the Jesuit Miguel Agustin Pro, who would be executed without trial [for alleged assassination attempt against former president Álvaro Obregón]. Since 1976, annual reports from the State Department on human rights violations in Mexico pretty up reality all they can, and after the so-called "December mistake" [the Mexican peso crisis] in 1994, Bill Clinton organized a monumental bailout. In the background is the undoubted power asymmetry which provokes different reactions among the presidents. Lázaro Cárdenas used the imminence of World War II and his relationship with ambassador Josephus Daniels to nationalize oil. José López Portillo, emboldened by the oil bonanza, got angry in 1979 and publicly scolded Jimmy Carter. The Enrique Peña Nieto government adopted the attitude of a diligent servant who stoically tolerates the arms smuggling that prolongs war and puts barriers on migrants to placate Barack Obama. The Peña government's silence also comes from its contempt for Mexicans. If you cover up leaders who plunder the public purse and if you ignore everything you can about victims of criminal violence, why would you react when an American racist accuses the entire country of being "drug addicts," "criminals" and "rapists "? It's very possible that Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate, and that he will continue taking advantage of Mexico to cultivate fear. The passivity and silence of the Mexican government and a good part of society has been a grave error. History demonstrates time and again that today's world only respects those who clearly and firmly defend their rights and views. We should answer Donald Trump again and again, and make the U.S. government feel that we are not willing to be named as the only responsible parties for problems also caused by the U.S. We demand that they assume their responsibility, a term rarely used in American foreign policy circles. It's symptomatic and revealing that Pope Francis, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón responded to Trump in their styles and to the extent of their abilities. It's a cause that should erase differences and which we should seize to free us in good time of timidness and inferiority complexes.
CNIDOH/AO
