Politics: The dead-end road of appeasement
Mexico supposedly dodged a bullet by reaching a deal with the United States to avoid the imposition of punitive tariffs on Mexican goods, but in exchange the administration of President López Obrador made concessions that will prove costly both economically and politically. They have achieved the most ephemeral of victories. By beginning from the premise that any confrontation with Donald Trump must be avoided at all costs, AMLO may have locked the country into a vicious cycle of more concessions to come, such as accepting the third safe country status once we near the 45-day deadline for Trump to decide whether Mexico is fulfilling its end of the bargain.
Was this the best Mexican government could have done? Had it not given in to Trump’s threats and allowed him to try and proceed with the first 5% tariff – which would not have the catastrophic consequences that Ebrard has described – Mexico would no longer be sitting alone at the negotiating table. Indeed, the imposition of tariffs on the country's exports and a similar Mexican response (imposing tariffs on U.S. exports that would negatively affect the U.S. president's electoral base) would have forced many powerful U.S. political groups and businessmen to ally themselves with the Mexican government against Trump and to mount a media, economic, political, and legal defense that would make it difficult for the White House to apply the following round of tariff hikes and would have deprived Trump of such an easy political victory.
Such an alternative approach could still be a possibility. But statements by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Minister Ebrard seem to suggest that the Mexican government recognizes that the measures that they have already agreed to will not prove sufficient and that it will be necessary to agree to a further tightening of immigration policy and accept the safe third country status. The Mexican government might try to soften the blow by framing the arrangement as part of a broader regional agreement (a possibility that has already been raised by Ebrard) or by obtaining some specific financial commitments from Washington for the development of Central America and southern Mexico. But what seems increasingly clear is that Mexico will not be abandoning the strategy of appeasement.
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