March 3, 2016

Does Mexico secretly want a wall?

Mexico seems like it wants to ensure a Trump presidency.  First there was Vincente Fox saying he's not paying for the wall.  No Mexico's finance minister is saying the same thing;
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - There is no way Mexico would fund Donald Trump's "terrible" plan to build a wall along its border with the United States if the Republican front-runner wins the U.S. presidential election, the Mexican finance minister said.

Trump, the New York billionaire developer and former reality television star, sparked outrage in Mexico when he vowed to force Latin America's second largest economy to pay for a wall along the southern U.S. border to stem the flow of illegal immigration and drugs.

In a televised interview late on Wednesday, Finance Minister Luis Videgaray categorically rejected the proposal.

"Under no circumstance will Mexico pay for the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing," he said. "Building a wall between Mexico and the United States is a terrible idea. It is an idea based on ignorance and has no foundation in the reality of North American integration."
Saying there's no problem ignores the reality on the ground in America.  There is a problem, and it requires a solution. Mexican officials pretending no problem exists helps Trump.  Saying you won't pay for it, in the face of an angry and frustrated electorate worried about crime, drugs, and jobs inflames that frustration and also helps Trump.  It's not clear how Trump expects to get Mexico to pay for the wall - his answers have been ambiguous, evasive and frankly grade school.  Nor is it clear that people buy that Mexico would actually agree to pay for it, no matter what trade leverage Trump alludes to having.  People might not even care about that part.  Then again, they might want to see him try.  But they want a broken immigration fixed almost as much as they want jobs.

Clearly Mexico either doesn't get it or wants to deal with Trump.  If they really don't want him to win, they'd tackle the problem head on (in other ways) rather than antagonizing Trump supporters or even undecided voters.  If Mexico is so against it, maybe there is something to Trump's steadfast insistence on it. So might go the thinking of a lot of Americans.

If Mexico really does not want a wall, do they even care that people are fleeing to America?  What sort of message that send to Mexico's poor?  Go away. That's what it's telling them. But why then, antagonize Trump when he's winning primaries?  That almost ensures that if he wins the presidency it's going to happen.  His ego won't allow otherwise.  That makes Mexican reactions so perplexing.

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