Pablo Hiriart
The vandals who caused damage and set fire to vehicles with Mexican flags in their hands in downtown Los Angeles did Donald Trump a huge favor: they diverted attention from his costly fight with Elon Musk, allowed him to attack the Democratic governor of California, and portrayed migrants as violent thugs on television screens across the United States.
The poor foreign policy advice that President Claudia Sheinbaum has received has once again made Mexico the punching bag of Donald Trump and placed our compatriots in the United States in a serious position of vulnerability.
A couple of weeks ago (May 24, to be precise), from San Luis Potosí, the president issued a threat to the US government: “We will continue to inform, because if necessary we will mobilize, because we do not want taxes on remittances from our compatriots in the United States to Mexico, which serve the most needy.”
Well, they have mobilized. And none of the consequences of that mobilization (vandalism, in reality) benefit the millions of Mexicans who work in the United States. Nor does it benefit Mexicans living in Mexico.
What we saw over the weekend in Los Angeles only benefits Donald Trump and his most ardent and anti-Mexican supporters, as it provides incentives to justify the use of heavy-handed tactics against Latinos and shifts the political discussion to the only arena where Trump has the upper hand: immigration.
Groups of vandals mobilized in an organized manner, prepared to cause damage, and possibly stir up the unhealthy euphoria of racist groups, also violent, who prey on Mexicans who work honestly in the United States.
What do you mean? If necessary, we will mobilize?
So far, there is no evidence that the violent demonstrations in the Californian city are a result of the president’s inflammatory remarks and irresponsible threats, or that they are being orchestrated from the United States to help Trump score a triple victory.
It is well known that Morena has been more interested in creating party cells in the United States than in taking advantage of its majority in the legislative chambers to strengthen the consular network that protects and guides Mexicans in the northern country.
Even if it was not Morena cells that promoted the weekend’s excesses in Los Angeles, the president’s threat is there. It gave Trump’s rhetoric an ideal pretext to act against “the Mexican threat.”
Whoever advised her on this blackmail strategy has done a disservice to Mexico and her. The path to firmness and political dialogue with the United States does not involve extortion. Just because the CNTE teachers find this method effective in bringing the federal government to heel does not mean that the model of street pressure can be successfully applied in other countries.
Of course, the tax on remittances is part of the anti-immigrant fury of Donald Trump and a large part of the US population. But fiscal policy is a sovereign decision of each country. The Mexican president committed a serious act of interference with her threat of mobilizations and her intervention in the internal affairs of the US government. This is a local tax. This is another favor she is doing for Trump, not out of malice, but because she is poorly advised on foreign policy.
It is valid to lobby and exert pressure through political negotiation. But someone advised Claudia Sheinbaum to choose an arrogant and challenging path against her powerful neighbor to the north, who is looking for a fight with Mexicans.
Trump is imposing “compensatory” taxes, i.e., tariffs, on imports from countries that have a value-added tax (VAT). This is the basis for the discussion in virtually the entire world against the US government’s position: VAT is not a tax on foreign trade, but a local tax, and all nations have the right to establish their internal fiscal policy without interference.
In recent days, we have heard the president denounce “unacceptable” attempts at foreign interference, despite the absence of such attempts (the OAS’s observations regarding the election of the judiciary), and we see her intervening through non-diplomatic channels in the internal affairs of other countries.
She raises her voice, quite rightly and with every right, against Donald Trump’s raids to deport migrants in the United States, which violate human rights. But neither she nor her government has the moral authority to protest while the authorities of the previous government, including AMLO, who allowed nearly fifty Central American migrants to burn to death in a makeshift prison in Ciudad Juárez, remain unpunished.
All unpunished. Those who were responsible for managing migration within Mexico, and those who protected them so that the law would not catch up with them after the tragedy of more than 40 human beings, burned alive in facilities under federal control.
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