Did the U.S. and Mexico Just Link Their Immigration Policies?
The president sees his deal with Mexico as a victory—but he might not be pleased with the possibilities it opens up.
Jun 29, 2019
Andrés Martinez
Professor of journalism at Arizona State University
A tactical win can constitute a strategic blunder, a battle won that makes it more likely you lose the war. President Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters may in time come to feel this way about the agreement the administration reached with the Mexican government earlier this month.
The June 7 deal may seem to amount to a big victory for Trump, the result of a Tweetzkrieg threatening to impose tariffs on Mexican imports unless Mexico agreed to accomplish within 45 days what the U.S. has failed to do for years: “to sufficiently achieve results in addressing the flow of immigrants from Central America to the southern border.†Perhaps even Trump was surprised by Mexico’s readiness to give in to his demands, and mobilize forces to slam the door shut on Central Americans seeking to make their way up to the United States. He still hasn’t gotten Mexico to pay for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Trump can plausibly say that he is forcing Mexico itself to become the wall. Moreover, as the analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor noted on an influential Mexican cable-news show, the Mexican government’s submission to Trump’s tantrum sets Mexico up to be the U.S. president’s piñata during his long reelection campaign.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/trumps-deal-mexico-could-have-unintended-effects/592828/
