MEXICO- Members of the Republican Party and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador got into the ring of statements and, in the middle of the fight, they whip each other on the canvas between blows from the right and left with the same objective: to bring grist to their mill in the midst of the electoral contests that are being experienced in the two countries, analysts agree.
The Republican attacks focus mainly on reproaching the Mexican president for alleged complicity and tolerance with the drug cartels, highlighting the lack of support in immigration control and his flirtation with antidemocratic figures such as the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.
In counterattack, López Obrador has called them “ridiculous,” “cold and absent” in raising their American children whose “lack of love” and “education” pushes young people to desperate consumption of fentanyl.
He has also called them “politicians” “vile and ordinary propagandists” for taking Mexico as a piñata to capitalize on the conservative vote and has even gotten involved in the propaganda of the American vote, suggesting a massive Democratic suffrage, since the Republicans have opposed it. again and again to an immigration reform that would allow documents to be given to those who do not have papers.
“The party that regularizes the situation of Mexican migrants who have been living or working honestly in the United States for more than five years must have the support of Mexicans,” he said.
And he added with sarcasm: “Let’s see which party is encouraged and not just in words, because there have been occasions when they promise that they will regularize migrants and after the election they no longer comply.”
The Mexican’s loose tongue heated things up. After these statements, Vivek Ramaswamy, who tried to become the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, returned to the ring with an old weapon discarded last year: the idea of ”invading” Mexican territory if the cartels are considered “terrorist groups.”
Switched on, Ramaswamy metaphorized AMLO as the head of the cartels: “The fact of the matter is that if you have a neighbor who has a dog, comes into your yard and keeps biting your family members repeatedly, you can take a shotgun and shoot that dog.”
Shortly after, in early April, Mike Johnson, president of the United States House of Representatives, added fuel to the fire, raised the debate and literally accused the Mexican of “coddling the drug cartels” after newspaper articles and statements from criminal organizations assured that AMLO received millionaire illicit funds.
Among others, from the Sinaloa Cartel (through Los Beltran Leyva and Mayo); Los Zetas and Los Ardillos for their campaigns in the different elections in which the Tabasco native ran (2006, 2012 and 2018).
The president has denied the accusations and called them a “smear campaign.”
BETWEEN THE SAID AND THE FACT
For analysts of the binational relationship, Politicians in Mexico and the United States are trapped in their own electoral agendas that make them recycle issues to win votes.
“Every three years, the electoral cycles of Mexico and Washington DC coincide,” recalls Diego Chaves, director of the Migration and Policy Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean. “In the end they will support each other because they share a complicated border.”
While the bickering ran from one microphone to another, for example, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena traveled to Washington for meetings with Latino legislators, State Department officials and high-level advisors to the Biden Government on Security to work on “issues.” priority”.
At the end of January, a delegation of Texan legislators advanced to Mexico with spiteful speeches about the lack of retention of migrants stranded at their border, but once they arrived in the Mexican capital, they changed their speech to trade.
At the end of the meeting with López Obrador, Henry Cuellar declared to the press that there are more than two million businesses between the two countries, which translates into sources of work.
“We are going to work together on trade, tourism, visas to have more Mexicans, going to work in the United States is very important and also security.”
Congressman Cuellar highlighted that they will work as partners on these issues, including migration.
THE LOSERS
On February 7, Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border package that took months of negotiations with Democrats on legislation aimed at reducing the record number of unauthorized border crossings.
Thus, the injection of 20 billion dollars was denied in the poorest countries in America, which are the main expellers of people, a suggestion from López Obrador. It was closed despite the fact that it included $60 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel that the Republicans wanted.
“We allocate 150 million dollars to support countries in Latin America and the Caribbean,” declared the Mexican president as an example, although previously the United States has also given money to areas that expel migrants.
For the political scientist Andrés Besserer, The fact is that neither the Republican nor the Democratic governments have achieved a satisfactory solution for either party. Added to this is that Mexico cooperated in the subversion of the regime of the right to asylum when Trump announced the Stay in Mexico! policy, reversed by Biden.
“With this, AMLO allowed migrants to wait in his territory without having the capacity to ensure their safety. “So his cooperation with Trump turned out to be a mockery of migrants.”
In recent days, the spirit was heated again by Law SB4 that converts the entry of people without documents into a misdemeanor with sentences of six months in prison while Chancellor Bárcena visited the area to condemn the area, but also highlighted that there “1.5 million dollars per minute are traded with Mexico.”
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