Trump, Hillary and Mexico

With respect to the visit that Donald Trump made to Mexico on Wednesday, Aug. 31, of last week, almost no one has paid attention to one odd piece of information: The night before, he was in the city of Everett in the state of Washington. There, at a rally, according to Seema Mehta, “There were no calls to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it, or a deportation force to deal with the millions of people who are in the country illegally. Instead, the sole reference to immigration at the Everett, Wash., rally Tuesday night focused on the drug epidemic.” There, Trump’s words were the following: “We are also going to secure our border and stop the drugs from pouring in and destroying our country. And I’ll be talking about that tomorrow night in Arizona — big speech on immigration, Arizona tomorrow night.” What Trump highlighted before coming to Mexico was his concern about the significant increase in heroin consumption in the Seattle area: “It’s getting worse; it’s getting horrific.” This was before he tweeted that he had accepted the invitation to visit Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto the following day.

The agenda of the Democratic Party was covered by vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, who was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to speak about pensions and a dignified retirement. Hillary appeared on the scene on Wednesday, Aug. 31, the day Trump was in Mexico. The Democratic candidate referred to Trump at the 98th National Convention of the American Legion in Cincinnati, using the following terms: “You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon… You [can’t] say one thing one day and something totally different the next. …And it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again. That is not how it works.”

Why did Trump decide to accept the invitation to come to Mexico? Well, because of a simple calculation of interest and opportunity — to find a solution to the fall reported in the polls since the Democratic Convention held July 25 to 28. The average of these polls, reported three weeks ago, showed a 6 point lead for Hillary; at present, the distance has been reduced to 4 points (Polls, RealClearPolitics). Nevertheless, we should remember that in the United States, elections are indirect, through electoral college votes by states according to the population they have. This week, The Washington Post published a national poll that shows that Hillary has the advantage in 20 states with 244 electoral votes (270 are needed to reach the presidency); Trump has the advantage in another 20, but he only has 126 electoral votes. His states contain a smaller proportion of the population.

Despite this encouraging advantage, Hillary has problems: New FBI revelations about the emails sent from the Department of State, when she headed that institution, to her personal email account have her cornered. Nina Turner, who was the spokesperson for Bernie Sanders, has advised Clinton to speak clearly with respect to those emails. As strange as it sounds, Hillary had not given a single press conference in 270 days (The Hill, 9/3/2016). She began to have contact with the press again after Labor Day, Monday of this week.

With that in his favor and, even more, the explosive return from Mexico to Phoenix where he affirmed that the Mexicans did not know it, but they would have to pay for the border wall, the New York magnate relaunched his weak campaign. As Hillary Clinton stated well at the American Legion’s National Convention, Trump changes his opinion erratically. He came here to say one thing and in Arizona said something different. On Tuesday, in Everett, he had not said anything about Mexico, and in Phoenix, he ranted against Mexico. That is why the Clinton campaign against Trump has focused on highlighting this businessman’s lack of ability to lead the United States. And that is what Hillary is doing; she is showing Trump’s inconsistency.

The contrast between these two candidates in international affairs is very clear: While in Cincinnati, Hillary gave a talk on globalization, the formation of coalitions against enemies like Iran, the Islamic State, or states that are rivals of the Americans like Russia and China, Trump has no clue about what is and should be the foreign policy of the United States. This celebrity has focused exclusively, as he guaranteed in Arizona, on fanning the flames against immigrants and, especially, against Mexicans, together with the promise of building a border wall. He is obsessively single issue.

Under these circumstances, it would be best that Hillary win, and that she take care of the world rather than Donald Trump, who stubbornly slanders Mexico.