‘Enrique Trump’

Donald Trump is a confessed racist who has dismissed Mexicans as “criminals” and “rapists.” The presidential hopeful has said that upon occupying the White House, he would deport millions of our Mexican compatriots from the United States, and would require the government of Mexico to construct a huge wall along the border between the two countries. He has made his attacks on Mexico and Mexicans one of the primary themes of his presidential campaign, along with his equally reactionary positions on Muslims and the Middle East.

In response, the government of Enrique Peña Nieto has maintained a complicit and criminal silence. The resident of Los Pinos* has not issued a statement on the subject, and his representatives have done everything possible to avoid questions or confrontations. Francisco Guzmán, Peña Nieto’s chief of staff, told Bloomberg News that the Peña Nieto government would work with Trump just as it would with any elected president of the neighboring country (see here).

In other words, the current leader of Mexico would put himself under Trump’s orders, as he has been doing with the administration of Barack Obama. For example, a few days ago, the Mexican president lowered himself to the level of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, during his visit to Mexico City to take part in a meeting with businessmen and oligarchs from our country. Peña Nieto met privately with Obama’s second-in-command for more than an hour, and they later held a joint press conference.

The rules of diplomacy require that there be strict equality with respect to public relations between two sovereign countries: presidents with presidents, vice presidents with vice presidents, attorneys-general with attorneys-general. It would be ridiculous to imagine, for example, holding a joint press conference in the White House between Obama and Minister of the Interior Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong or Attorney-General Arely Gómez. Peña demonstrated publicly what most already knew clearly: The country’s current chief executive doesn’t work for the Mexican people, but rather is one more employee of the government in Washington and the businessmen in Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

This deplorable situation explains why Peña Nieto hasn’t dared to question Trump head-on. He prefers to get in good with whomever is going to be his boss, instead of pleasing the citizens to whom he is supposedly accountable.

But Peña Nieto’s servility toward the north isn’t the only factor explaining his contemptible behavior in the face of the clear and present danger that Trump’s candidacy implies. In reality, the Mexican president and the Republican presidential hopeful share a common vision of the world. They both profoundly despise culture and education, and live in a world filled with champagne, sycophants and bodyguards that completely isolates them from the suffering and hopes of the common people. The two politicians serve the same master: money and power. Even though Peña’s and Trump’s fortunes come from different sources — the government coffers for the former, capitalist exploitation for the latter — they both survive as public figures by plundering the resources of others.

Even though Trump is less equivocal about his contempt for Mexico and Mexicans, Peña shares the same disdain toward the history and culture of the inhabitants of his own country. As we documented in the book “El mito de la transición democrática” [“The Myth of the Democratic Transition”], from the first day he took office, Peña has spearheaded an ideological, political and economic offensive against the traditions and humanistic values held by Mexicans.

It is already clear by now that the slogan “Move Mexico” in reality means “Destroy Mexico.” The “Reform of the Energy Industry” has led to the dismantling of Petróleos Mexicanos. The state-owned oil company has lately suffered enormous financial damage, with few possibilities for future growth, because its oil reserves have been handed over to foreign private consortiums. And the “educational reform” has been nothing more than a thinly disguised attack on all teachers, in particular on those who have been the most vocal critics, those who have defended the Mexican tradition of critical, humanistic education. In the past week, this reform has already produced the first mass layoffs, with more than 3,400 teachers relieved of their duties. Let us also remember that Peña Nieto has surged ahead of Trump with respect to anti-migrant policies. Mexico today expels more fellow Latin Americans from its territory than the U.S. government itself does.

The handover of our black gold to the multinationals, the annihilation of critical schoolteachers, and the harassment of Central American migrants constitute the other side of the coin of Trump’s racist and fascist politics. Peña and Trump together are trying to do away with any citizen or popular resistance to the absolute domination of their countries by money and corruption.

Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is no better. She is the candidate with the support of the military industrial complex, according to the organization Open Secrets, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. (see here). The private military companies have given 20 times more to Clinton’s campaign than to Trump’s.

Our salvation will not come from the north, or from the corridors of global financial and political power. We Mexicans will have to construct the road to peace and justice ourselves, from the bottom up, and to the left.

* Editor’s Note: The official residence of the Mexican president.