EPA/Alex Cruz

While AMLO won’t take office until December 1, he has already established a transition team to start addressing corruption, violence and inequality – the scourges of Mexico’s long and unfinished journey to full democracy. This includes the grave human rights crisis of the past 10 years, which has seen more than 200,000 killed and 35,000 disappeared. It’s a tall order. Then again, he and his party have already achieved something remarkable by Mexico’s standards: trouncing the political establishment in a vote that seems to have been essentially clean.

There were understandable concerns that the vote – in which an electorate of 90m voted for thousands of federal, state and municipal candidates – would be manipulated to keep AMLO and his relatively new party, MORENA, out of office. In the run-up to the vote, more than 130 political candidates were murdered across the country in regions affected by high levels of violence, and many journalists were attacked.

Mexico’s fraudulent elections, administered by weak electoral authorities, have frequently seen the country’s dominant economic interests and political parties freely bribe, coerce and manipulate voters. Many political parties have resorted to such tactics, particularly in poorer neighbourhoods highly dependent on the authorities. And the mainstream media, closely allied to dominant political interests, has also frequently played a key role in shaping the political narrative in favour of the status quo.

These practices have frequently subverted the political process, denying authentic popular democratic sovereignty and undermining any remaining trust in the political system. Before the vote, it seemed they would be deployed once again to stop a popular left-wing candidate who clearly threatened the status quo. That prospect demanded an intensive monitoring effort – and plenty of people rose to the task.
 

Determination wins the day

A range of academics and citizen activists in Mexico and abroad duly formed a network to scrutinise the electoral process. The Red Universitaria y Ciudadana por la Democracia (RUCD) brought together 200 Mexicans and 100 international delegates to monitor the voting, and other civic networks also formed to carry out election monitoring on an unprecedented scale. I myself joined a 25-strong UK delegation of academics, trade unionists and activists from the London-based NGO Justice Mexico Now. The delegates formed 11 small groups with Mexico-based monitors travelling around the states surrounding Mexico City to monitor the elections as officially recognised observers.

AMLO casts his vote in Mexico City. EPA/Mario Guzman

This act of civil society scrutiny and international solidarity added an important preventive dimension to the election process and also focused attention on the risks of fraudulent practices undermining the result.

Over the course of polling day, observers witnessed a range of troubling irregularities that demonstrated just how fragile the electoral process is – particularly in the poorest neighbourhoods, many of which are susceptible to the power of political parties and criminal networks. Yet as the day progressed, it became clear that people were determined to vote.

In the end, turnout was the highest of the democratic era. The patience of citizens determined to exercise their political rights and demand change from their political authorities was palpable and inspiring.

As the ballots closed, the observation groups monitored the initial count at diverse polling stations, watching votes pile up for AMLO and MORENA even in some of the wealthier neighbourhoods of Mexico City. By early evening, the PRI and PAN candidates had little choice but to concede. Late in the night, AMLO held his victory celebrations in Mexico’s central square to a huge crowd, euphoric at the possibility of a new dawn and an end to the old political system.

AMLO’s task now is to do better than previous transition governments, which have struggled to move beyond their empty rhetorical commitments. The problems are obvious: Trump next door, trade policy in chaos, a sluggish domestic economy, and multiple violent actors determined to pursue their interests at any costs. But the hunger for change manifested at the polls provides a vital impetus for the government as it begins to overcome Mexico’s vested interests and democratic deficits – and tries to set an example for the rest of the Americas.
 

Rupert Knox, PhD Candidate, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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López Obrador won 53 percent of the vote, according to the latest official count. His closest contender, Ricardo Anaya – who formed an unusual right-left alliance late last year in a futile attempt to overtake López Obrador – earned 25 percent of votes.

Just 16 percent of voters chose the ruling party candidate, José Antonio Meade, of the Revolutionary Institutional Party.

With 18,000 other public offices up for election, from mayors to senators, this was Mexico’s biggest and most expensive election ever.

It was also the most violent in Mexico’s modern history. At least 136 candidates and political operatives were killed on the campaign trail, apparently assassinated by organized crime groups seeking to maintain their grip on power.

Many unknowns

In his victory speech, López Obrador promised Mexicans, whose disgust at politics as usual propelled this career outsider into the presidency, that he would “transform” their country. He would govern “for the good of everyone,” he said, “starting with the poor.”
The four presidential candidates argued over many issues, including how to tackle Mexico’s record-high violence and systemic inequality.

Many of López Obrador’s lofty campaign commitments, which include giving amnesty to drug kingpins and rooting out political corruption, remain short on specific details.

It is unclear, for example, how his government will pay for all the social programs he has promised, or what its stance on social issues like abortion will be considering that his Morena party aligned with the right-wing Social Encounter party to build its electoral coalition.

Mexico and immigration

One thing was clear by the end of the campaign, which coincided with a new Trump administration policy of criminally prosecuting all migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border: Mexico would no longer help enforce the immigration laws of its neighbor to the north.

President-elect López Obrador has called the U.S. policy of separating migrant families “arrogant, racist and inhuman.”

Despite Trump’s repeated claims that Mexico does “nothing” to stop Central American migrants from reaching the United States, Mexico has been a proactive partner in U.S. immigration enforcement.

Outgoing President Peña Nieto, who was constitutionally prohibited from seeking re-election, accepted US$90 million in American funding to launch the Southern Border Program in 2014, aimed at deterring migration across Mexico’s border with Guatemala and apprehending migrants who journey through the country.

Mexican deportations of Central Americans traveling to the U.S. – primarily Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans – soon doubled, from 78,733 in 2013 to 176,726 in 2015. During the same period, U.S. border agents detained half as many Central American migrants at the border.

The changing face of migration

Migration patterns in the region have changed radically in recent decades.

The number of Mexicans apprehended crossing illegally into the U.S. has plummeted, from more than 1.6 million in 2000 to 130,000 last year. More Mexicans are now leaving the U.S. than arriving.

Central Americans, driven by pervasive violence and poverty, currently make up the bulk of people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2017, U.S. Border Patrol agents there arrested 303,916 migrants. Just over half of them – 162,891 people – were from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Mexico has thus become a major transit country for migrants.

It is also, increasingly, their final destination. Mexico saw 12,700 asylum requests from Central American refugees in 2017, up from 8,800 in 2016 and 3,400 in 2015. Only the U.S. received more Central American asylum-seekers, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Since 2014 Mexico has cracked down on Central Americans crossing the Mexico-Guatemala border. AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini
 

Nobody’s piñata

An early critic of President Peña Nieto’s policy of arresting and deporting Central Americans, López Obrador accused the Mexican government of committing human rights violations against migrants.

As president, López Obrador will still “pay special attention” to Mexico’s southern border, he says. But his government will no longer do the U.S.‘s immigration “dirty work.”

López Obrador wants Mexico to respect existing laws that protect the human rights of migrants. The Mexican Constitution has guaranteed that asylum-seekers can find refuge in its borders since 2016.

The high cost of appeasing Trump

In his first interview as president-elect, aired on July 2, López Obrador thanked President Trump for a congratulatory tweet posted on election night.

He also said he “will not fight” Trump. Mexico will respect the American government, López Obrador said, because it expects respect from the U.S.

Actually getting that respect may be tough, as his predecessor learned the hard way. In August 2016, President Peña Nieto’s advisers invited Trump, whose 2016 campaign was fueled by promises to build a “big, fat, beautiful” border wall, to come to Mexico.

Trump’s August 2016 visit to Mexico was calamitous for outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his party. AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills

During Trump’s visit, Peña Nieto emphasized his country’s contribution to U.S. immigration enforcement. The border, Peña Nieto said to a subdued Trump, represents a “shared challenge” and a “great humanitarian crisis.”

Trump later ridiculed his Mexican counterpart, insisting that the U.S. needed a border wall.

“They don’t know it yet,” he told supporters at an Arizona rally, “but they’re going to pay for it.”

Peña Nieto never recovered from this diplomatic disaster. Almost 90 percent of Mexican citizens said they were offended by Trump’s visit and by their president’s submissive behavior. Peña Nieto’s approval rating plunged to below 25 percent and stayed there.

His Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI, paid the price in this election. Candidate José Antonio Meade finished in third place, and the PRI lost eight senate seats and eight governor’s races. It may lose several more seats that are still being contested.

Another Mexican revolution

López Obrador benefited from Peña Nieto’s mistakes.

His young Morena party, which was founded in 2014, won a legislative majority on July 1. Its candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, also won. She will be the first woman elected to lead the Mexican capital.

López Obrador’s self-aggrandizement has some Mexican political onlookers worried. He sold himself to voters as a revolutionary figure, saying his presidency will be the latest phase in Mexico’s 200-year progressive political transformation, which began with winning independence from Spain, in 1821, continued in the 1850s with the War of Reform, which consolidated republican liberalism in Mexico, and expanded during the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Mexico is entering a new era, as is the U.S.-Mexico relationship. But no one – probably not even Mexico’s future president – knows quite what that means.
 

Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Let’s hope that Donald Trump is the political version of syrup of ipecac.

The American system has been sick to its stomach for some time. Then along comes Donald Trump, America swallows him (hook, line, and sinker), and the system experiences gut-churning convulsions ever since. According to the most hopeful medical prognosis, America will eventually expel Trump from its system and feel so much better afterwards.

Reminder: The whole world is watching. How we deal with this president’s fundamentally anti-American policies will have tremendous international ramifications. In fact, the rest of the world is already dealing with the “Trump effect.”

After all, while Trump is our emetic, he’s the rest of the world’s smelling salts. Some key countries around the world are already coming to their senses about the threat of dangerous populists. The test cases will be France and Germany. But a progressive backlash appears to be building elsewhere as well.

Against Le Pen

Marine Le Pen is the smiling face of the new fascism.

She’s a twice-divorced Catholic who supports a woman’s right to choose. But she’s also a dangerous populist with virulently anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural, anti-EU views.

She’s more law-and-order than Rudy Giuliani. And her anti-globalization rants appeal to some on the left, which means that her National Front party is doing well in areas that once voted for the French Communists.

Marine Le Pen is also a front runner in the presidential race slated for later this spring. She leads her rivals in the latest polls with 27 percent. It’s enough to generate predictions of a Trump-like upset.

Until recently, her major challenge came from someone with views nearly as abhorrent as hers. Francois Fillon, the candidate of the conservative Republicans, was clearly hoping to steal votes from Le Pen, the New York Times reported, when he “positioned himself as a staunch defender of French values, vowing to restore authority, honor the Roman Catholic Church, and exert ‘strict administrative control’ over Islam.”

Yet the upright Fillon hasn’t turned out to be as scrupulous as he pretended. A scandal involving alleged payments to family members for parliamentary work has caused Fillon to slip considerably in the polls.

This would ordinarily represent an opportunity for the left. But the socialist and left parties haven’t been able to reconcile their differences and unite against the center-right and the National Front.

Which leaves independent politician Emmanuel Macron as the most appealing candidate who can go up against Le Pen. Macron isn’t an easy politician to pin down. He was the economy minister in Francois Hollande’s Socialist government, but he’s infuriated the more obdurate of the French left by embracing free trade, challenging union privileges, and speaking out against the 35-hour workweek (at least for younger workers). On the other hand, Macron is EU-friendly, pro-immigrant, a fan of Germany over Russia, and committed to the full progressive agenda on social issues.

Despite his establishment credentials, Macron is presenting himself as an outsider. He’s channeled Trump by railing against the elite — those who take advantage of their entrenched economic and political privileges — and he wants to shake up France with En Marche! movement. He’s also channeled Obama by emphasizing his own youth and dynamism.

Macron isn’t afraid to make waves. He took a hit in the polls recently when he argued that French colonial policy in Algeria amounted to a “crime against humanity” and refused to back down from implicating the French state in these acts.

However you define him politically — and he himself avoids labels — Macron is the best bet that French progressives have of defeating Le Pen in a second round of voting. As long as Le Pen doesn’t secure an outright majority in the first round, most of the French electorate will have an opportunity to gang up against the neo-fascist threat — just as they did when her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made it to the second round in 2002.

Macron can also ensure that France doesn’t end up with Fillon’s only slightly less repugnant version of National Front politics (the equivalent of defeating Trump only to elect Ted Cruz).

Taking Back Germany

For Angela Merkel, it’s the best of times and the worst of times.

The rise of Donald Trump and the retreat of the United States from international affairs have placed Merkel and Germany at the moral center of the “West” because of their acceptance of refugees and non-acceptance of Vladimir Putin. Domestically, however, while Merkel’s immigration policies have infuriated the German right, the economic policies that have impoverished Greece and threatened the cohesion of the European Union have angered the German left. The Christian Democratic Party is consequently slumping at the polls.

Despite all the press that Franke Petry and her far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party have gotten in the Western press — including this almost admiring piece in The New Yorker — the anti-immigrant party only polls around 10 percent. The real beneficiary of the Trump victory in Germany has been Martin Schulz, the head of the Social Democratic Party. Schulz has effectively used the threat of nationalism and Trump-like politics to bring his party neck and neck with Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Writes Anthony Faiola in The Washington Post:

In a country that stands as a painful example of the disastrous effects of radical nationalism, Schulz is building a campaign in part around bold attacks on Trump. He has stopped well short of direct comparisons to Adolf Hitler, but Schulz recently mentioned Trump in the same speech in which he heralded his party’s resistance to the Nazis in the lead-up to World War II. 

Schulz is the former president of the European parliament, where he also served as a member for two decades. As such, Schulz has become the face of the new MEGA campaign: Make Europe Great Again. Having been active at the European level for so long, Schulz is also something of an outsider to domestic German politics. Like Trump, he prides himself on being self-taught. Unlike Trump, he actually reads books.

The Social Democrats might not succeed in dislodging Merkel. But they’ll help keep the extremists out of power and may just manage to get enough votes to necessitate a grand coalition. With the European Union threatening to implode, such an example of trans-partisan governance at the heart of the continent could reassure those fed up with political polarization that compromise — and indeed, politics as we know it — can still thrive in modern democracies.

Less optimistic is the situation in the Netherlands, where the party of extremist Geert Wilders is leading the polls. Wilders, whose mother’s family came from Indonesia and whose wife is Hungarian, has built his career on anti-immigrant fanaticism. If he becomes prime minister, he’s promised to guide his country out of the EU, close borders to immigrants, and close all mosques: Trump on steroids.

The Dutch elections take place in mid-March. Even if Wilders wins a plurality of the votes, it’s not likely that he’ll be able to form a government. No other parties are willing to join hands with such a toxic politician. The Dutch might be crazy enough to vote for Wilders — but they’re not crazy enough to actually work with him.

Outside Europe

Closer to home, the Trump effect is providing the Mexican left with its greatest boost in years. Huge demonstrations have taken place around the country to protest the energy policies of Enrique Peña Nieto’s government and the immigration and trade policies of Donald Trump. Nieto’s popularity is embarrassingly low — 12 percent, lower even than Trump’s.

Veteran left politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the major benefactor of all this dissatisfaction. He’s a perpetual outsider to Mexico’s national politics. But, like Bernie Sanders, he acquired considerable experience as a mayor — of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005. “He ran a populist and popular administration which kept subway fares low, built elevated freeways and partnered with the billionaire Carlos Slim to restore the city’s historic center,” writes David Agren in The Guardian. “He also provided stipends to seniors and single mothers, initiatives initially denounced as populism but replicated by others including Peña Nieto.”

AMLO, as he is often called, is currently the presidential frontrunner, though elections won’t take place until July 2018. But he’s not holding his fire until then. “Enough of being passive,” AMLO said recently. “We should put a national emergency plan in place to face the damage and reverse the protectionist policies of Donald Trump.”

With Justin Trudeau in Canada and a possible leftist leader in Mexico, Donald Trump would be caught in a potential North American containment strategy. Perhaps, in a reversal of the Cold War dynamic, Europe would establish military bases in Montreal and Tijuana to make sure that the United States doesn’t overstep its bounds.

Further afield, South Korea will be holding an election this year after a decade of conservative rule. The current president, Park Geun-Hye, has popularity figures even lower than Nieto or Trump. She’s been embroiled in an impeachment process over corruption charges, her conservative party has changed its name to escape any associations with her reign, and no truly viable conservative candidate has emerged to extend the right’s hold on power. Ban Ki-Moon, the former UN general secretary, was briefly the Hail Mary candidate for conservatives before dropping out of the running.

The current front runner, Moon Jae-in, is an establishment progressive who used to work in the Roh Moo-Hyun administration. He would resurrect some of Roh’s policies such as a more balanced approach to the United States and China as well as some form of principled engagement with North Korea. But he’s not the only progressive alternative.

There’s also the mayor of Seongnam, Lee Jae-Myeong, who styles himself the Sanders of South Korea.

The election is officially scheduled for December, but if Park is impeached, the date would be moved up. No doubt many in the United States wish the South Korean electoral rules pertained here: impeachment followed by new elections. Impeachment is still an option, of course, but the prospect of President Pence isn’t reassuring.

In November, Donald Trump’s victory seemed to be part of a global rejection of liberal internationalism — from Russia to the UK to the Philippines. Certainly many in the Trump administration, most notably strategic advisor Steve Bannon, hope to use their newly acquired juice to help their compatriots, like Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, take power as well.

But threats have a marvelous mobilizing effect. Donald Trump may be an inspiration to some. For many others, however, Trump is a whiff of something evil-smelling that jolts progressive politics all over the world out of its swoon.

(This article was first published on Foreign Policy in Focus).
 

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Trump had called the press conference to talk about his choice of attorney Alexander Acosta for the role of labour secretary, but he began to make tall claims about his victory margin during the conversation.

He said, “I put it out before the American people. I got 306 electoral college votes because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before.  So that’s the way it goes. I guess it’s the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.”

However, barely moments later, an intrepid Alexander intervened and abruptly told Trump, “Very simple you said today that you had the biggest electoral margin since Ronald Reagan, with 304, 306 electoral votes. The fact that President Obama got 365..”

A visibly embarrassed Trump interjected and said that he was talking about Republican presidents.

But the reporter was determined to call out Trump’s bluff. He said that George HW Bush (a Republican) too had got 426 electoral college votes.

He asked, “Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you are providing information that is fake?”

The reporter was hinting at Trump’s accusation against certain US media outlets, who he had alleged were busy publishing and broadcasting fake news.

Faced with an unending humiliation, Trump blamed his aides for the wrong information when he said, “Well no I was given that information. I don’t know, I was just given that.”

Trump has become hugely popular among the right-wing Hindutva brigade in India because of his anti-Muslim rants. His critics in India have often compared him with Prime Minister Narendra Modi because of perceived similarity in many behavioural patterns and personality traits.

But, what’s striking here is that in India Modi has never held a press conference by making himself available for questions from journalists. Trump, despite all his gaffes and controversial statements, continues to expose himself for public scrutiny.

Another highlight of Thursday’s press conference was that while in America, journalists continue to ask tough questions to their president, an overwhelming majority of their counterparts in India have now mortgaged their freedom to the ruling party for the want of uninterrupted flow of government ad revenue and other sources of lucrative income particularly during elections.

Not so long ago, a leading Hindi newspaper, Jagran, was found guilty of flouting election guidelines in favour of the Modi’s party prompting the law enforcing agencies to arrest the group’s online editor.

There’s little doubt that if an Indian journalist had challenged Modi in a similar fashion, the reporter in question would have been summarily shown the door as most appointments in Indian media, these days, are allegedly carried out by the ruling party.

Both Modi and his party president, Amit Shah, have been accused of indulging in factual inaccuracies on public platforms, but seldom has anyone dared to correct them.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter

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Marches in over 20 cities across country to protest US President Trump

 

Mexico City March against Donald Trump, February 12, 2017; Photo Credit: AFP
 

Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested Sunday against US President Donald Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and his depictions of them as “rapists” and "criminals" and to demand “the respecting of Mexico.

"Mexico must be respected, Mr Trump," said a giant banner carried by protesters in Mexico City, who waved a sea of red, white and green Mexican flags as they marched down the capital's main avenue.

In what is shaping up to be Mexico's biggest anti-Trump protest yet, over 20 cities joined the call to march. Dozens of universities, business associations and civic organisations are backing the protest.

"It is time we citizens combine forces and unite our voices to show our indignation and rejection of President Trump, while contributing to the search for concrete solutions," said the coalition behind the marches.

Protester Julieta Rosas was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Trump sporting an Adolf Hitler mustache.

"We're here to make Trump see and feel that an entire country, united, is rising up against him and his xenophobic, discriminatory and fascist stupidity," said Rosas, a literature student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

"We are all migrants. We are all one. This is a time to build bridges, not walls," said 73-year-old protester Jose Antonio Sanchez, who was marching with his nine-year-old granddaughter.

This story was first published on Common Dreams.

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Following through on campaign promises to crack down on immigration, Trump signed executive orders to both kick-start the construction of a border wall with Mexico and block federal grants for “sanctuary cities” – jurisdictions that offer safe harbour for undocumented immigrants.
Trump justified these measures as necessary for improving domestic security. “A nation without borders is not a nation,” he said. “Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders.”

After signing the orders, Trump insisted in an interview with ABC news network that Mexico would reimburse construction expenses “at a later date”.

Trump’s push to force Mexico to pay for the wall has plunged the two neighbours into a tense and unusual diplomatic standoff. Mexico has long been a key partner and ally of the US and Enrique Peña Nieto’s government has keenly tried to avoid a standoff. Trump, on the other hand, has fuelled one with his frantic social media activity.

Welcome to the era of Twitter diplomacy.
 

American non-diplomacy

Historically, diplomacy is not one of America’s strong suits. Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once noted that he was surprised to learn that US international officials usually see “little need for diplomacy”. For Americans, Boutros-Ghali claimed, it’s perceived as “a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.”

But with Mexico President Trump has taken this tradition of American non-diplomacy to uncharted territories.
 

Peña Nieto chose moderation and diplomatic subtlety to address Trump’s belligerence. This conciliatory strategy has, indeed, been perceived as a sign of weakness on both sides of the border.

Yet the Mexican government’s situation is delicate. Either Peña Nieto endures Trump’s relentless humiliation, or he jeopardises the nation’s commercial partnership with the US, which buys 80% of Mexican exports.

So Peña Nieto did everything possible to appease Trump, probably hoping that he would eventually moderate his positions. He even appointed Luis Videgaray – the unpopular politician who organised then-candidate Trump’s ill-received August 2016 visit to Mexico – as Minister of Foreign Relations.

Trump answered the conciliatory gesture, which was deeply controversial in Mexico, by tweeting that his southern neighbours would pay for the wall in the border “a little later” in order to build it “more quickly”.

Peña Nieto then tried to warn Trump about the consequences that a conflict with Mexico could have upon the US agenda. Using the infamous druglord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo, as a subtle rebuke to Trump’s stance on Mexico, the president extradited him to the US on January 19, just a few hours before Barack Obama’s term expired.

US officials and the Mexican public interpreted the timing of the extradition, which had been green-lighted for months, as a Mexican housewarming gift to the Trump White House.

But a different hypothesis seems more plausible. Mexico rushed to hand over El Chapo to Obama to prevent Trump from taking credit for the extradition. As Mexican journalist Esteban Illades argued, if Mexico had delayed the extradition by one more day, Trump would have boasted about his role in organising it for months on Twitter.

But Trump didn’t pay attention to Peña Nieto’s warning: two days after taking office, he announced that he would begin renegotiating NAFTA with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, and set a meeting with Peña Nieto on January 31.

Peña Nieto sent Videgaray and Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico’s Minister of Economy, to Washington for preparing his meeting with Trump. He instructed them to avoid both submission and confrontation in negotiations with the American administration.

But that plan faltered when, on the night before the emissaries were to arrive to Washington, Trump tweeted that Wednesday would be a “big day” for “national security” because he was looking forward to “building the wall”. Videgaray and Guajardo were actually in the White House when Trump left the building to sign his executive order.

This insult raised outrage in Mexico. Intellectuals, politicians and citizens, both left and right, demanded that Peña Nieto cancel his visit to Washington.
 

Mexico’s president answered this new provocation with a short video statement, in which he said that Mexican consulates would now serve as legal aid offices for undocumented Mexican migrants in the US. He resisted though cancelling the meeting with Trump, saying that he would make a decision based on Videgaray’s and Guajardo’s report out.

But another social media blast from Trump derailed that wait-and-see strategy, too:

Even for mild Peña Nieto this was too much. He cancelled the meeting with Trump without even a press conference. Instead he tweeted: “This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the working meeting with @POTUS scheduled next Tuesday.”

As Foreign Minister Videgaray acknowledged, “You don’t ask your neighbour to pay for your home’s wall.”

A phone call between Trump and Peña Nieto on Friday morning may allow for a brief cooling-off period, but without a doubt Mexico and the US have entered into an age of conflict. The consequences, in North America and beyond, are still uncertain.
 

Spectres of the national anthem

If the US administration moves forward with its proposed plan to build the wall and fund it by imposing a 20% tax on Mexican imports, Peña Nieto’s government has options for retaliation. It could implement a crackdown on American citizens – many of them retirees – who overstay their tourist visas in Mexico, or impose reciprocal tariffs on American exports.

Indeed, the US should not take Mexican friendship for granted. As Mexican historian Enrique Krauze has pointed out, despite recent good relations, Mexico has a series of historical grievances against the US, which remain deeply rooted in Mexican collective memories.

First, the US invaded Mexico in 1846, annexing half of its territory. This event was so traumatic that it became the main theme of the Mexican national anthem.

Then, in 1913, the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson plotted to have democratically elected president Francisco Madero murdered. This incident plunged Mexico into a fierce civil war and postponed effective implementation of democracy in the country for 90 years.

Finally, in 1914 US marines occupied the city of Veracruz, triggering a prolonged period of hostile relations. The bond between Mexico and the US only normalised again in 1942 with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbour policy.

To maintain this peaceful coexistence, both Mexican and American governments have usually taken into account the complex historic relationship between the countries.

Trump’s novelty is that he seemingly has no interest in or intention to contemplate the conflicted history of Mexican-American relations – not even considering the strategic importance of Mexico for his nation.
 

The Twitter president

Instead, his policy decisions seem based on social media metrics.

Mexican writer Jorge Volpi believes that Trump’s use of Twitter as a privileged medium says a lot about this president. Twitter favours speed over analysis, wit over depth, and aggression over reflection. For Volpi, these are very Trumpian character traits.

The global consequences of such Twitter diplomacy are unknowable. But in Mexico, beyond generating a diplomatic crisis, Trump’s actions are successfully arousing the dormant spirits of Mexican nationalism.

Social media platforms are on fire there. Denise Dresser, a respected liberal intellectual, declared that though Donald Trump’s presidency may last eight years, Mexico has existed for thousands of years. The historian Rafael Estrada Michel has called for Mexico to renegotiate not NAFTA but the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty, which established the current US-Mexico border after the Mexican-American war.

If US-Mexico relations continue in this line, Mexicans will be forced to pay a terrible price for Trump’s antics. NAFTA established a prosperous free-trade zone in North America, and without its main trade partner, Mexico will have to entirely reinvent its global alliances and its economic structure.
By the way, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative website – which, in our brave new world of alternative facts, might be taken down soon – US manufacturing exports have increased 258% under NAFTA, and 40% of Mexican exports into the US are actually originated in American inputs.

It is also likely that the US will find it seeking Mexico’s support in the near future. Neighbourly collaboration is still necessary to face the myriad challenges both countries share, including climate change and cross-border drug policy. Will Mexico be there next time the US needs it?

It now falls on American and Mexican citizens to defend and foster the peaceful relationship that has been built with much suffering over decades – not with Twitter diplomacy, but with human feeling.

Author is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong

Courtesy: The Conversation
 

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A Muslim woman, in her Facebook post, wrote a post about how another woman at Walmart allegedly told her that she is not “allowed” to wear a hijab, and asked her to “go hang yourself with it around your neck”. Another girl – a Latino, wrote about being bullied in the school with questions like “you still here?”.

A 33-year-old black woman was allegedly abused verbally and was told by a group of supporters that Trump is going to deport her to Africa. Same experience was narrated by another black woman, while some guys tried to abuse a woman and allegedly yelled things like, “grab her by her pussy”.

Video calling for ban on Muslims disappears from Trump's website

Meanwhile, video of the president elect Donald Trump’s speech in which he suggests banning all Muslims from the US was removed from his website, as the voting for the presidential election was underway, reported Independent. The change in his stance was evident also from his acceptance speech on November 9, when he spoke about “common ground and not hostility”, and dealing with everyone “fairly”. However, ground reality in the United States portrayed a different picture.

In his speech in the month of December, Trump had called for a total shutdown of Muslims. He had said, “Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out – what the hell is going on! We have no choice. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid, but it’s getting worse and worse.”

He had said that the country cannot be a victim of people who believe in Jihad, creating an image of an ismophobe for himself. Trump and his allies have consistently defended the ban, insisting the measure was about Americans’ "safety" and not about discriminating against religion. Videos and speeches defending the ban remain on the Trump campaign website.

His controversial video in which he talks about grabbing women by their genitalia made matters worse for him, and darkened his existing image, that of a misogynist. His anti-immigrant stand is also very well-known from his “wall” remark, in which he had promised a wall between the USA and Mexico to stop the entry of the illegal “rapist, criminal and drug-addict” immigrants. 

Welcome to the United States of America. Under Donald Trump.

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