Trump’s 2nd Threat

President Donald Trump has launched his second threat against the Mexican government. He told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News that he has been working for 90 days to classify Mexican drug cartels as terrorists. Trump does not announce a fact but an intention, as in his first threat. He did not impose a 5% tariff on Mexican products, but only threatened to do so. The tariff threat radically changed the immigration policy of the new government. We went from welcoming those who came from the south with a soft policy of humanitarian visas to a hard policy with closed doors. Mexico became Trump’s wall for Central American migrants.

We don’t know what Trump’s demands will be, relative to his new threat. We do know that the threatening speech will not end, for it is part of Trump’s reelection platform. In other words, the pounding on Mexico has just begun.

The consequences of the new threat to the bilateral relationship can hardly be overstated. The terrorist designation is made in Washington for specific groups, for example, the Islamic State or al-Qaida, with very demanding requirements. U.S. citizens and businesses are obliged to suspend and report any relationship with these groups. The countries where these groups operate can receive strong sanctions, economic and otherwise, if they seem unable to control their terrorists or if they offer insufficient collaboration in combating them.

The term “terror” in U.S. law refers to “violent acts against human life, property or infrastructure,”* to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation and coercion … mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”

Trump’s current threat falls on another soft policy of the Mexican government: the offer of “hugs, not bullets” for organized crime. The threat does not have to be actualized, it just needs to be present. If the correction here is as drastic as that of the immigration issue, what we may have for security is an upside-down policy of bullets and not of hugs, under Washington’s supervision.

*Editor’s note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified. The USA Patriot Act defined “terrorism” as “violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State.”