Mexico's president meets reality, and doesn't like it

Mexican President Lopez Obrador is apparently peeved with US President Trump over the latter's economic retaliation against Mexico for not stemming the tide of illegal alien border-jumpers.

In a pointed letter released Thursday, López Obrador lashed out at Trump for what he described as the U.S. president's "turning the United States, overnight, from a country of brotherly love for immigrants from around the world, to a bolted space, where there's stigmatizing, mistreatment, abuse, persecution, and a denial of the right to justice to those who seek -- with sacrifice and hard work -- to live free from misery."

López Obrador said that “social problems are not solved with duties or coercive measures,” and alluded to the United States’ history as a nation of immigrants: “The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol.”

He added in the letter, which he provided a link to on his Twitter account, that in contrast to Trump's approach, Mexico is doing its part to avoid migration through its territory as much as possible, without violating human rights.

“People don’t leave their homelands for pleasure but out of necessity," the Mexican leader said.

There's more at the link.

That's a fine note of righteous indignation, to be sure.  Unfortunately, it doesn't square with Lopez Obrador's far-left-wing credentials and previous pronouncements.  For example:

• “Soon, very soon, after the victory of our movement, we will defend migrants all over the American continent and the migrants of the world who, by necessity, must abandon their towns to find life in the United States,” Lopez Obrador said during a rally in the Mexican city of Culiacán ... “It’s a human right we will defend,” he added.
• Lopez Obrador said on Thursday tackling illegal immigration is an issue chiefly for the United States and Central America to address ... Mexico would help to check the flow of migrants heading north, but that his country was no longer the main driver of the phenomenon ... "That is, this is a problem of the United States, or it's a problem of the Central American countries. It's not up to us Mexicans, no ... I just emphasize that migration flows of Mexicans to the United States are very low, a lot lower," he said. "The Mexican is no longer seeking work in the United States. The majority are inhabitants of our fellow Central American countries."

That doesn't sound like a man seriously trying to address the issue, does it?

American Thinker pointed out last year:

To be sure, AMLO is only saying out loud what every other Mexican president believed in his heart: that America is Mexico's "social safety net" and that it's up to the U.S. taxpayer to take care of Mexico's unemployable, destitute millions.

Unsaid by AMLO is the implication of a mass migration of Mexicans to the U.S.  The not so secret dream of every Mexican government is that illegals flooding into America will eventually allow for a "return" of California and much of the American southwest to Mexico.

What makes this socialist different, however, is his novel argument that entering the U.S. illegally is actually a "human right."  That's an opinion we could have a lot of fun with.  One would assume that if it were a "human right" to illegally enter the U.S., it would then be a human right to enter Mexico – or any other country, for that matter.

Again, more at the link.

If the United States allowed unfettered, unrestricted access to aliens intent on crossing Canada's southern border, Canada would rightly protest as strongly as possible, and probably take the US to international courts, the United Nations, and any other avenue of action it could think of, to stem the tide.  If the US were to do the same to Mexico (assuming sufficient numbers of the insane could be found that are willing to enter that criminal-violence-plagued nation), Mexico would protest equally strongly.  Why, then is Lopez Obrador surprised to find a similar reaction from the US?

The stability of Mexico is dependent on one single thing:  its access to the US market.  That includes both production in Mexico that's exported north, and money sent home by its citizens in America (most of them here illegally), which amounts to a staggering $25-billion-plus (yes, that's "Billion" with a "B") every year.  Without that access and that cash flow, the Mexican economy would collapse.  That's the plain and simple truth - and that's what President Trump is now using as leverage.

If tariffs on Mexican imports don't work, President Trump can turn to the remittances sent to that country by people in the USA.  That would hurt even more than tariffs. He can't tax them without a new law passed by Congress, which isn't going to happen while Democrats control the House.  However, he can stop the flow altogether on national security grounds (for which, I submit, a mass invasion by illegal aliens, such as is now going on, could be more than sufficient grounds).  That would mess up Mexico's economy almost overnight.

I hope, for the sake of his country, that Lopez Obrador gets the picture, straightens up and flies right.  If he doesn't, Mexico is about to get squeezed . . . and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.  If our positions were reversed, I'm sure it would try to do the same thing.

Peter