Tag: Mexico

Hopes dim for passage of Trump trade deal

The Hill logoHouse Democrats say there’s little to no chance that Congress will take up President Trump‘s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before the end of summer. 

With only three more weeks scheduled to be in session before the August recess, House Democrats from across the spectrum are demanding that the trade pact with Mexico and Canada be renegotiated, citing concerns with the implications for labor and environmental standards as well as drug prices.

The Trump administration has been pushing for approval of the deal, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), by August due to concerns that the 2020 presidential campaign will make it politically impossible to complete the deal this fall. Congress will also have to deal with avoiding a government shutdown and debt default after returning to Washington on Sept. 9 from the monthlong summer recess.

View the complete July 5 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

Mexico Releases Text Of ‘Secret’ Agreement With US On Refugee Policy

When President Donald Trump announced last week that he would not be imposing tariffs on Mexican goods being imported to the United States as he had threatened, he said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government had agreed to major concessions on refugee policy.

The New York Times quickly pointed out that the concessions the governments had agreed to had already been established months before, making it look like Trump had simply backed down from an empty threat. But Trump insisted this was wrong. There was, he said, a secret additional agreement with Mexico that included even more significant concessions.

And on Tuesday, Trump even waved around a folded piece of paper in front of reporters, claiming it was the secret deal. One intrepid reporter took a close-up shot of the paper, and because of the sunlight shining through it, parts of the text were visible. I suggested that, though it wasn’t entirely clear what the deal amounted to, the visible text indicated it was mostly vague promises.

View the complete June 14 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Mexico crisis shows the limits of Trump’s brinkmanship

The president’s negotiating style has settled into a familiar — and increasingly ineffective — pattern.

You might say it’s The Art of the Deal.

First, spark a crisis by threatening harsh consequences if hazy, unspecified demands aren’t met.

Then, torque the suspense as an artificial deadline approaches, while nervous observers warn of the dire consequences of going over the cliff.

View the complete June 8 article by Eliana Johnson and Nancy Cook on the Politico website here.

US-Mexico deal offers few new solutions, political victory

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s deal to avert his threatened tariffs on Mexico includes few new solutions to swiftly stem the surge of Central American migrants flowing over America’s southern border.

But it delivers enough for Trump to claim a political win.

The decision — announced by tweet late Friday — ended a showdown that business leaders warned would have disastrous economic consequences for both the U.S. and one of its largest trading partners, driving up consumer prices and driving a wedge between the two allies. And it represented a win for members of Trump’s own party who had flooded the White House with pleading calls as well as aides who had been eager to convince the president to back down.

View the complete June 9 article by Jill Colvin, Zeke Miller and Colleen Long on the Associated Press website here.

Mexico Agreed to Take Border Actions Months Before Trump Announced Tariff Deal

WASHINGTON — The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations.

Friday’s joint declaration says Mexico agreed to the “deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.” But the Mexican government had already pledged to do that in March during secret talks in Miami between Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of homeland security, and Olga Sanchez, the Mexican secretary of the interior, the officials said.

The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s deal was an expansion of a program to allow asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal cases proceed. But that arrangement was reached in December in a pair of painstakingly negotiated diplomatic notes that the two countries exchanged. Ms. Nielsen announced the Migrant Protection Protocols during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee five days before Christmas.

View the complete June 8 article by Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Trump: ‘Foolish’ for GOP to try to stop tariffs on Mexico

President Trump on Tuesday insisted he will follow through with new tariffs on Mexico if it does not do more to curb illegal migration and said it would be “foolish” for congressional Republicans to try and stop him.

“We are going to see if we can do something, but I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on,” Trump said during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Addressing deliberations by Republicans on a measure that could limit his tariff power, Trump said, “I don’t think they will do that. I think if they do, it’s foolish.”

View the complete June 4 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Trump thinks auto tariffs against Mexico will solve border ‘crisis’

If the president really believes the U.S. is being “invaded” by “gang members,” a tariff sure is a weird way to respond.

In an apparent reversal on the position he so firmly stated over the weekend, President Donald Trump now says that he will not immediately shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, opting instead to wait for a year.

Although he had threatened to shut down the border this week, the president told the press at the White House on Thursday that Mexico should consider this a “one-year warning.”

While his threat to shut down the border was intended to force Mexico to stop Central American migrants from reaching the U.S. border, the president focused on drugs when he said he plans on imposing tariffs on Mexican products, “particularly cars.”

View the complete April 4 article by D. Parvaz on the ThinkProgress website here.

Who’s Going To Pay For The Wall? Mexic — Oh??

Trump shut down the government to force taxpayers to fund an ineffective border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. As Americans increasingly put the blame on Trump for the shutdown, his lies about paying for the border wall are unraveling.

Trump shut down the government to force taxpayers to fund his border wall after promising over 200 times that Mexico would pay for it.

Washington Post: “From his announcement speech to the election, he declared 212 times that Mexico would pay for the wall, according to the comprehensive record of Trump’s speeches, interviews and tweets maintained by factba.se. That works out to almost every two days during the campaign. Mexico refuses to pay for the wall, and Trump has engineered a government shutdown to try to force Congress to appropriate the necessary funds.”

Trump falsely claimed that he never said “Mexico would write a check” for the border wall, when he wrote a campaign memo promising to force Mexico to make a $5-10 billion “one-time payment.”

Trump: “When, during the campaign, I would say Mexico is going to pay for it, obviously I never said this and I never meant they are going to write out a check.” Continue reading “Who’s Going To Pay For The Wall? Mexic — Oh??”

What Democrats Want from NAFTA Retooling

Here’s what Democrats want from a rework of NAFTA:

Any new deal must raise wages, protect workers’ rights and freedoms, reduce outsourcing and put the interests of working families first.

Despite Trump’s claims, there is no new trade deal:

We have yet to see the details of the understanding reached between Trump and Mexico, provisions are still being negotiated, Canada has not even entered into negotiations, and the deal would still have to be approved by Congress before Trump can claim credit.

We have to wait and see the details, but if we have learned anything over the past two years it is that we cannot trust Trump to stand up for workers.

The American people — particularly workers — must be able to review any agreement Trump reaches to make sure it delivers and can be enforced in a way that protects workers and communities going forward.

Trump has no clear strategy and has given workers no confidence that he’s putting their interests first.

 

‘Hellooo . . . Hellooo?’: An awkward phone call becomes part of the Trump spectacle

The following article by David Nakamura was posted on the Washington Post website August 27, 2018:

A call between President Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto got off to a rocky start on Aug. 27 when Trump realized Peña Nieto was not on the call. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Amid breaking news of a U.S.-Mexico trade deal, President Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office on Monday to punctuate the moment in an unusual way: allowing them to sit in on a celebratory phone chat with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

But when he punched a button on a phone on the Resolute Desk, the line was dead.

“Enrique?” Trump said, with television cameras rolling. There was no response. “You can hook him up,” he called out to aides. “You tell me when. This is a big deal. A lot of people are waiting.”

View the complete article here.