Secret Negotiations between Mexico and US

The New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfield Davis and Michael D. Shear revealed the secret negotiations that Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard had with U.S. President Donald Trump’s officials to accept the “Remain in Mexico” program.

Remain in Mexico has its origins in a U.S. law with extraterritorial application in Mexico, which, despite violating national sovereignty, Ebrard accepted when he was not even in office.

The book “Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration” was published in October 2019, but is little known in Mexico as there is no Spanish translation.

The journalists wrote that in Houston on Nov. 15, 2018, the appointed secretary of foreign affairs accepted Remain in Mexico in the meeting he held with Secretaries Mike Pompeo and Kirstjen Nielsen, accompanied by his then adviser, Javier López Casarín.

The authors revealed that, before the meeting in Houston, Miles Taylor, Nielsen’s senior advisor, and López Casarín, Ebrard’s right-hand man, held “clandestine diplomatic meetings” to fine-tune the migration agreement before their bosses approved it.

The story of the secret negotiations is recounted in the chapter, “Mexican Standoff,” based on American sources and documents.

The book is required reading for understanding the current humanitarian crisis, when Mexico became America’s migration backyard, a situation that has brought about so much harm and death to migrants.

According to the authors, at the end of 2018, Ebrard proposed two conditions for accepting Remain in Mexico:

1. That the U.S. would announce a $10 billion investment in development in Mexico and Central America, before unveiling the Remain in Mexico program. The announcement did take place, but Trump never sent a single dollar.

2. That no agreement for the program would be signed, but rather, diplomatic notes would be exchanged. On one hand, the U.S. communicates the unilateral return of asylum-seekers to Mexican territory; and on the other, Mexico responds that it would not have any objection to their waiting in national territory.

I think that Ebrard’s strategy failed. Trump imposed the ignominious Remain in Mexico program, still in effect, and never sent a single dollar to the region. Mexico’s sovereignty had been undermined.

According to the authors, while Ebrard was negotiating in the dark, The Washington Post uncovered the Remain in Mexico program, established behind the back of future Mexican Secretary of the Interior Olga Sánchez Cordero, the person responsible for the incoming government’s migration policy. She said, “There is no agreement between the future federal government of Mexico and the United States of America.” It is clear that Sánchez Cordero knew nothing about Ebrard’s secret deals.

Finally, on instructions from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sánchez Cordero was marginalized regarding the migration policy. Ebrard accepted U.S. asylum-seekers and coordinated sending the National Guard to the borders to control the migrants, with Trump’s applause. What a sad memory for Mexico.