Surrendering Sovereignty

The reiteration by Mexico’s foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, that Mexico will not accept being a safe third country, but that the nation’s migration strategy is a success when 70% of the Central Americans (who, for Donald Trump, and for Mexico as well, are undesirable) are in the process of being expelled, demonstrates the profundity of the crisis in which Mexican foreign policy finds itself.

His statement that he does not regret what was done, as long as it means “complying with Mexican law,” speaks to how much this law (we assume that it refers to migration laws) not only was not complied with, but instead was broken by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s demagogic speech encouraging illegal immigration. It also speaks to the great extent to which Washington applied pressure to make sure that this law was carried out in a way that it found convenient. This is a complete paradox, of the size of this country, which has now become Trumpism’s famous wall.

In the first place, it does not make sense nor does it seem right that the chancellor of the Republic of the 4Ts* travels to Trump and Mike Pompeo’s home to show the nation’s compliance and accepts the cynical congratulations that Trump sent out by tweet (“Incredible progress being made at the Southern Border!” tweeted the tycoon). This show of good behavior makes very visible, esthetically (ethics are esthetics) a submissive and abject attitude, which not only wasn’t necessary, but also is evidence of the proportionate lack of strategic vision that is being held in the face of the complex world order in which we’re immersed, but to which the López Obrador government stubbornly refuses to belong.

Since last June 7, on which it was agreed to carry out Trump’s demand to stop the wave of Central American migration in return for which Washington would not impose a tariff of 5% on our exports, Mexico demonstrated a strange nervousness and showed that it is weak and vulnerable in the face of Trump’s boasting. First of all, the speed: Mexico acted in a disorderly way and couldn’t do anything else besides surrender. There were different options but they weren’t considered. Since this unilateral decision violated the framework of NAFTA and the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, our country could have appealed to the World Trade Organization. The country didn’t do that, instead opting to surrender its sovereignty.

What would have happened if in the fullness of the electoral campaign, in which Trump has fallen spectacularly in the polls, Mexico had opted to respond in the same way, applying the same tariff on the importation of the many products that come from Michigan, Texas, Arizona and other states in the United States? Surely Trump would have seen his numbers fall in states that are key to his reelection. To the contrary of what Ebrard argues, the tariff matter is an issue for both sides and not just the will of the United States. (Ebrard declared: “The tariff issue is a matter that only depends on the will of the U.S. president.”). Completely to the contrary! It is, of course, a key issue for both countries, which the Mexican president’s advisers (or he himself) decided to ignore.

For example, the tariffs would increase prices for the United States consumer and would affect the intra-firm production chain in both markets. Just in 2018, Mexico exported $450.92 billion to the world, of which 81.18% is exported to the U.S. For that reason, if Trump imposed a 5% tariff on our products, he would affect the procurement of the value-chains integrated into the production of both countries’ markets. The list of affected items is long: motor vehicles, telephone products, televisions, medical devices and equipment, information processing units, crude petroleum, spark plug cables, malt beer, tequila, avocados, bed products, unrefined gold and silver powder and fuel oil.

That is to say, a complete explosion causing scarcity in business inventories and, as a consequence, the above-mentioned price increases and breaking the industrial linkage within businesses. The inability of the Mexican government to get these concrete elements on the risk agenda and in the construction of scenarios to contain structural crises is what keeps us tied to a defensive and mediocre policy. And that shows how the unevenness and the lack of vision have led to a submissive policy that this country does not deserve. Even less so when Mexico had conditions in its favor to keep Trump from affecting a Mexican independence celebration that is already diminished. But, without a doubt, one that was celebrated today from the balconies of the National Palace. Happy Independence Day!**

*Translator’s note: “4Ts” refers to President López Obrador’s assertion that Mexico is now undergoing its fourth transformation, after independence, the liberal reforms of the 18th century, and the Mexican Revolution.

** Translator’s note: This article was published on Sept. 15, on which a celebration of Mexico’s declaration of independence is held throughout the country.