House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that the Democratic majority in the House would begin the impeachment process against President Donald Trump for having asked a foreign government, Ukraine, to investigate Joe Biden, his potential rival in the 2020 race for the White House.
The House Judiciary Committee will draw up articles of impeachment for a vote by the House. If the majority votes in favor of impeachment, Trump will face a political trial in the Senate, in which the House appoints members to prosecute the case against Trump, and the Senate acts as the jury in a procedure presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
It will be only the fourth time in U.S. history that impeachment proceedings have been set in motion.
The previous proceedings involved Presidents Andrew Jackson (1868), Richard Nixon (1974) and Bill Clinton (1999). The first and third cases reached the Senate, where, for lack of a qualified two-thirds majority, the president was not removed from office. In Nixon’s case, he resigned his office as the impeachment process progressed in the House of Representatives.
What may happen now? The House is expected to issue the articles of impeachment before the end of the year and the Senate trial is expected to take place in January.*
In Clinton’s case, thae trial lasted just over a month, from Jan. 7 to Feb. 9. The same thing is likely to happen this time, and likely to end in the same way: without the necessary two-thirds majority vote needed to remove Trump.
Remember that the Senate is made up of 53 Republicans and 45 Democrats. That makes it very difficult to consider any other ending for the trial.
This will be the second attempt by the Democratic opposition in the Senate to dismiss Trump.
It made an attempt to do so with the so-called Russiagate, but the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to establish sufficient evidence that Trump had received support from Vladimir Putin’s government to sink the campaign of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s rival in the 2016 presidential race. Now Democrats will seek to do remove Trump through “Ukrainegate,” based on testimony given at hearings that took place last month.
The Democrats’ electoral interest is evident. Their real purpose is not to remove Trump – they know they don’t have the votes in the Senate to do it – but to torpedo his fragile popular support, hoping he loses backing and can be defeated in the presidential election next November.
Regretfully, Democratic opponents lack a strong candidate to face down Trump, so they need additional momentum to get him out of the White House.
It is very likely Mexico will be a victim of that fight.
Our country hoped that the revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement or the T-MEC** as we call it here—but Pelosi’s announcement about impeachment does not bode well.***
And it’s not just because the impeachment will delay discussion of the T-MEC in Congress. It is obvious that the agreement cannot compete with the U.S. president’s impeachment proceeding and the opposition will not want to give Trump a political victory right now,*** but because the president may well be inclined to declare that his country is out of the current NAFTA treaty and blame it on the Democrats’ delay in approving the renegotiated version last year.
Can you imagine a start to 2020 where Trump announces that his country is leaving NAFTA, a few weeks after adding Mexican drug cartels to the list of terrorist organizations—something that could happen on Friday?
There is no doubt: a cornered Trump could be dangerous for Mexico.
*Editor’s note: House Democrats presented two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Dec. 9, 2019, alleging abuse of power and obstruction of justice.
**Editor’s note: The new trade agreement has a different name in each country involved. In Mexico, it is known as Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadà.
***Editor’s note: House Democrats and the White House reached a deal on Dec. 10 to advance Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA, according to an announcement by Speaker Pelosi on Tuesday.
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