Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Last time I talked about our North American problems with Canada. Now I want to turn the emphasis to Mexico.
President Donald Trump has threatened all sorts of trade sanctions on Mexico, a 25% tariff. But why is he doing this? And I think the answer is there’s four things that Mexico knows it has been doing to us with impunity, especially under Joe Biden, that are not sustainable.
The first, it used to run under NAFTA $10-$20 billion trade surplus. Then it went to $40 billion, then it went to $50 billion. And then, during Donald Trump’s first term, we renegotiated it. It kind of stayed static. Now it’s over $175 billion.
But get this, it’s mostly due to China evading tariffs on China by sending raw product materials to Mexico—computers, phones, appliances to be assembled by Mexicans, and then sent under free trade agreements with us, to the benefit of Mexico and China.
But $175 billion—that is the second-largest trade surplus of any country. It’s getting close to China itself.
No. 2 is that we had this open border. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former Mexican president, said it was a beautiful thing that 40 million people—Mexicans—had come in illegally to the United States. Twelve million or more came in during Joe Biden’s tenure. That was all done with the contrivance of Mexico.
Remember, Mexico looked at that open border as a win-win-win-win situation, No. 1. And Frederick Jackson Turner’s theory of the safety valve—they thought that when people were dissatisfied and underserved in Mexico, especially southern Mexicans, who were indigenous and subject to a great deal of hostility and prejudice by Mexico City, they would go to El Norte rather than march on Mexico City. And they did.
No. 2, they felt that they would form an expatriate community. And that expatriate community, which, as Mr. Obrador claims, is 40 million people—I don’t know if it’s quite that large—but they’re a powerful force for the Mexican government’s point of view within the United States. There are 50 consulates that Mexico puts in the United States to develop that chauvinism and that pro-Mexican attitude among Americans, residents, and citizens.
No. 3, the remittances. Sixty-three billion dollars come to Mexico and that money comes largely from illegal aliens. But more importantly, it comes from people receiving state, local, and federal subsidies. So, you, the taxpayer—in terms of health subsidies, education subsidies, housing, food subsidies—are freeing up cash to send $63 billion back to Mexico.
There’s another problem, and that is the cartels. They welcome in, with the connivance or neglect—I don’t know how you want to term it—of the Mexican government, Mexican fentanyl product shipped from China.
So, China sends raw fentanyl. Factories that are controlled by the cartels disguise that fentanyl and lace it in drugs that are recreational and that people take in the United States without knowing that the high they’re getting is coming from a cheaper fentanyl. And the result is 60,000 to 100,000 Americans are dying every year because of the cartels.
That is another issue that Trump wants to address.
Add it all up, if you add $20 billion, at least, that the cartels are profiting from American drug sales, as well as sending illegal aliens through coyotes and through guides into the United States, who pay the cartel for illegal crossings. And you add that $20 billion to the $63 billion in remittances and you add the $63 billion to the $175 billion in trade surplus, you’re looking at almost $260 billion of American cash that’s going to Mexico. And they all have that one thing in common, they all share a degree of illegality.
They are breaking trade agreements by reassembling Chinese products and running up a huge surplus. They are breaking immigration laws by exporting people here and then sending back cash—$63 billion worth in remittances. And they are breaking drug laws and immigration laws through the cartels.
Donald Trump, in this case, has far more cause to be angry with Mexico than he does with Canada. But what we are witnessing, in conclusion, is a complete reexamination of the entire North American paradigm of three once-close nations.
I want to add one thing. Mexico thinks that we’re not serious, but they should look at the recent Pew international poll. For the first time, 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Mexico. And if they think that having Mexican nationals shut down American freeways and wave the flag of the country under no circumstances which they are willing to return to while burning the flag under all circumstances they want to stay and that’s going to win back American public approval, it’s not.
So, if Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was wise, she would negotiate with Donald Trump, get that trade surplus from $175 billion down to $30 or $40 billion, stop all of the fentanyl, help secure the border, look at the remittances, allow us to put a tax on 10% or 15%, and I think we would have cordial relations again.
Victor Davis Hanson, a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.”
Reproduced with permission. Original here: Trump Has Many Reasons to Be Upset With Mexico
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