The question that is running among Mexicanologists in the United States is very simple…
If there are two women presidents, in Mexico and in the United States, will that erase the mutual distrust that grew between the governments of the two countries in the last two years of the government that just ended last week?
If the one who arrives is Donald Trump, the question will be even more intriguing, because the level of distrust on the Mexican side will have to increase to its maximum capacity… and the challenge for the new Mexican government will grow in the same proportion.
The only thing that is certain now is that, starting January 20, there will be a new turn in the United States’ relationship with Mexico. Joe Biden’s policy of appeasement will end that day. In fact, the United States would no longer care about “looking good or not” with the Mexican government to ensure that the Mexican government continues to contain the waves of migrants from around the world arriving at the southern borders of the United States.
Once the presidential election is over, which will be in less than a month, Democrats will not be interested in whether these volumes of immigrants crossing the border grow again. The debt was left pending due to the favor that President López Obrador did for Joe Biden. Quiet Mexico reached an agreement with Biden: Washington would turn a blind eye to the entire drug trafficking problem, while Mexico helped it hide from American voters the enormous immigration crisis, which was the biggest political impediment to re-election for Biden and the democrats.
Let’s change the presidential candidate in the United States
The American press says that Trump, apart from getting involved in trade issues and Fentanyl trafficking, does not seem interested in meddling in other internal affairs in Mexico, for example, its still-in-process constitutional reforms.
Kamala Harris, being traditionally a Democrat, may be more inclined to get involved in issues that Mexicans do not like to share, especially with northern gringos. Therefore, if the Democrats win, the next four years for the most important bilateral relationship in North America could be a winding road full of obstacles, artificial obstacles and obviously distances as a consequence.
Kamala Harris’ bilateral agenda contains explosive topics and the Democratic candidate has been talking about them.
During her visit to the border, the former California Attorney General presumed to be the only one in this campaign who has confronted the Mexican cartels, and has imprisoned their members.
But those branches of those cartels that Kamala Harris persecuted as a prosecutor have grown considerably. Today they are involved in the very profitable businesses that also grew on the border with Mexico; immigration, fentanyl trafficking and the insistent influence of Mexican organized crime in all chapters of public life. That can lead to an awkward relationship… at best.
Add to that Washington’s new bipartisan hostility toward trade agreements and what results is a difficult future in the pompously named “bilateral relationship.”
Kamala Harris in her visit to Douglas, Arizona at the mere border promised, “more measures” to prevent border crossings between ports of entry, including continuing or tightening limits on access to asylum and “more severe criminal charges.” for persons crossing into the United States without inspection.
This Democratic presidential candidate is nothing like President Biden, who saw friendly arrangements in everything. Harris knows that she has to be tough and appear tough in the face of the immigration crisis and all the problems that exist at the border.
That’s why this statement, from the Democratic candidate on the border in Arizona:
“If someone does not file an asylum claim at a legal point of entry and instead crosses our border illegally, they will be prohibited from receiving asylum.”
Note that Democrats do not bother to warn that immigrants from around the world who are rejected at the border will have to settle in Mexico.
Kamala and her party aren’t bothering to ask Mexico for permission first.
They don’t do it because they take it for granted and we still don’t know how Sheinbaum’s government will react to all this.
Will she remain silent like the previous government? Will it force Washington to negotiate?
How easy or difficult will Mexico make this renegotiation?
Much of the rest of Harris’ border message focused on cross-border fentanyl smuggling. The Democrats’ plan is to go all out on the daily traffic that occurs overwhelmingly by vehicle at land border ports of entry.
If the Democratic candidate becomes president, she promised to hire more border patrol members, purchase and activate more fentanyl detection equipment at all ports of entry to the United States.
Again; Note that it says nothing about checking the large commercial containers, in which, according to the US government itself, much of the Mexican drugs find their way to this side of the border.
That’s why recent polls show that people trust Donald Trump much more to bring order to the trafficking of drugs, fentanyl, people, cash and firearms. Not only in Arizona but throughout the border with Mexico.
In a speech delivered the day after Kamala Harris was in Arizona, Donald Trump in Wisconsin called Harris’ comments “nonsense,” and added: his long-standing accusation that the Biden and Harris administrations… “They are letting “entering people who are going to invade American homes.” “Trump said to those people, we must treat them like the animals they are.” Yes indeed, Donald has not changed.
The future of the United States-Mexico relationship not only depends on who will be the next president of the United States, but also on which party will be in charge of Congress – Democrats or Republicans.
That brings us right to the US congressional election.
This new congress that will be voted on November 5 has all the potential to come under the control of the Republicans. If that happens, things would get much more complicated.
In Mexico we must get used to thinking that the Constitution of the United States divides the powers in charge of foreign policy between the executive branch, which is the presidency, and the legislative branch, which is Congress. Both share the formulation of foreign policy. That’s why Congress constantly intervenes in US foreign affairs.
Remember that this relationship between the two countries must be nurtured. It is convenient for the new Mexican government to cultivate the relationship with the White House, but with the same intensity it is also convenient for it to cultivate it in the Capitol. President Sheinbaum could be more inclusive than the previous president was.
Ignoring the congress in Washington, assuming that it is like the Mexican congress that is at the service of the presidency, is a serious mistake.
In almost all of these circumstances, Congress can support the President’s approach or try to change it. In the case of independent presidential action, it can be very difficult to change policy in the short term. In the case of a legislative proposal from the executive branch or international treaties and agreements presented to the Senate or the House of Representatives for approval, both chambers of Congress have a decisive voice.
When Congress does not support the president, things become difficult and foreign relations become complicated. With a Republican Congress, the insistence on taking drastic actions against organized crime in Mexico will not stop putting pressure on the hand of whoever becomes president.
That is why in its relationship with Mexico, the United States will first have to decide whether to turn a blind eye to the antidemocratic tendencies that are taking hold in its most important trading partner and focus on narrow and parochial issues in a kind of Faustian pact or if you consider the relationship as a whole. That will depend on who is left in the White House.
For the United States, the challenges that President Claudia Sheinbaum faces in Mexico are inherently difficult. The new government inherited a country with persistently high levels of violence and, what appear to be, weaker institutions and even democratic regression.
It will be up to the president of Mexico to demonstrate whether these perceptions in Washington are true or false.
The great advantage he has is the enormous political capital he inherited from the outgoing Mexican president. In Washington there are those who see her as someone with a talent for solving problems and for bringing fresh energy and delivering results quickly.
That is why it is said that his ability to do the latter will define what the relations of the new Mexican government with the future US government will have to be.