AMLO takes aim at DeSantis – for proposals he stayed silent on with Trump
Mexico's president and foreign minister have branded a Florida anti-immigration law 'racist' with AMLO urging Latinos to vote against Republican candidate Ron DeSantis
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was deep into a long-winded response at his May 25 morning press conference – on a question no one remembered – when he started spitballing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
AMLO, as the president was known, had been railing against supposed U.S. funding for his political opponents (in the form of USAID support for anti-graft and press freedom organizations), when he turned his fire on DeSantis:
“I also take this opportunity to tell Mr. DeSantis, who declared yesterday – you can see that I didn’t get this wrong – that all his politicking about immigrants was because he wants to be the Republican Party candidate.”
He then sent a message to Hispanics in Florida – who he seemingly didn’t realize voted overwhelming for DeSantis in the last gubernatorial race:
“I hope that Florida Hispanics wake up and don’t give him a single vote. That they don’t vote for those persecuting migrants, those who don’t respect migrants. As the Bible says, they deserve respect. You must respect – the Bible says – the stranger, and not mistreat them.”
AMLO’s non-intervention foreign policy – applied at his convenience
López Obrador speaks often of Mexico’s traditional foreign policy of non-intervention – a holdover from the era of one-party rule, when autocratic Mexican governments invoked non-intervention as a trope for blunting criticisms of its own untoward practices at home.
He invokes it at his convenience, however – such as when asked for a reaction to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol. (AMLO never once criticized then-president Donald Trump). But, mostly, he spouts off on matters in other countries, especially if it involves lefties in South America he considers fellow travellers. Now he’s casting aside non-interventionism to troll and assail Republican candidates during his two-hour morning press conferences.
Trolling DeSantis
DeSantis said after the lifting of Title 42 that the border should be “shut down.” He later told Fox News, “Day one, it's a national emergency. We will mobilize all resources to construct the border wall, shut the border down.” Asylum seekers with valid claims will wait in Mexico, he says, while those crossing the border illegally would be expelled.
AMLO trolled DeSantis in his response to the governor’s statements. The president continued it in the May 25 diatribe, turning to the topic of fentanyl:
“He also raised the same thing [as others], fentanyl, thinking that with that he is going to get votes. Let him start looking because … fentanyl is arriving through Florida, because it is arriving in the United States, sadly, that’s proven. So he doesn’t go blaming us. First, let him do an investigation because … the drug is entering through Florida.
“And we have to be informing, informing, information people, so that (U.S. politicians) don’t offend Mexico, that they learn to respect us.”
The journalist asking the original question responded to the president’s musings on DeSantis with a follow up question on the expropriations of properties for the construction of one of AMLO’s pet projects.
For his part, DeSantis responded to AMLO’s initial criticisms with the comments:
“You have this Mexican president. He’s criticizing Florida for enacting laws vs illegal immigration. It’s like he’s got a disaster on his hands. He’s got cartels that are totally out of control, that are running his country and all the millions of people coming into our country they’re all coming through his country. What kind of a country just allows people by the millions to just traverse through like that?”
AMLO blasts border wall
The following day, May 26, the president took aim at the border wall – a topic he hadn’t spoken much on during Trump administration, though he claimed to have told the then-president, “That wall is publicity because it doesn’t resolve anything. What you have to look for is that people don’t see themselves forced to leave their communities.”
López Obrador took special aim at DeSantis’s promises to continue building the border wall, along with assertions that the barrier keeps fentanyl out of the country:
“This pre-candidate from the United States, from Florida: ‘I’m going to build a wall.’ Show me … are you going to build 2,000 kilometres of wall? There have been five, six presidents building a wall and they have not even covered half of the 3,180 kilometres of border that we have. And he’s going to build the wall? Whatever. They’re not going to stop spouting off.
“And why the wall?
“He says: “Ah, because migrants bring drugs.’ False. Liars. Migrants don’t bring drugs.’”
It’s all ‘politicking,’ according to AMLO
AMLO has consistently responded to talk of taking action on the border or stopping immigration – be it from Trump or other politicians – as “politicking” and pointing to the electoral calendar.
But he’s also raised the tone with both DeSantis and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott – while steadfastly refusing to criticize Trump, who AMLO has gotten along, backed during Trump’s cries of election fraud (which were reminiscent of AMLO’s baseless claims in 2006), and even called, “A good person.”
Mexican politicians traditionally back Mexican migrants in the United States, calling them “heroes” and lauding them for sending remittances. Mexico’s government has mobilized since DeSantis promoted and signed what he’s called, “(The) strongest anti-illegal immigration law in the country.”
AMLO wasted no time blasting the law, saying at his May 8 press conference, taking aim at both DeSantis and Abbott:
“The governor of Florida – imagine, Florida, full of migrants – is not taking repressive, inhuman measures against migrants in Florida. Why? Because he wants to be a candidate. … That’s immoral. That’s politicking.”
He then criticized Abbott, who has ordered truck inspections at border crossings to protest what he considers insufficient action on immigration – and drawing anger from the Mexican government and exporters:
“The governor of Texas, too, on one occasion said that he was going to arm the border area with cannons pointed toward us, tanks. … Helicopters. Well, it’s their territory and they can do it, only on their side of the border.
“Better that the governor of Texas and the Governor of Florida, and legislators from the Republican Party, and some from the Democratic party, too draw up a proposal so that guns are no longer sold in supermarkets, high-powered weapons. … Why don’t they get involved in that?”
He concluded his comments and press conference by stating, “But, in the end, we’re going to continue having good relations” – even though shows the same disdain for the Biden administration in his press conferences.
Foreign minister promises mobilization against ‘racist’ law
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard travelled to Florida over the May 21 to May 22 weekend, where he promised to organize Mexicans against the DeSantis laws. He convoked a meeting of the Mexican community for June 30, where he promised to review the Mexican government’s plan for defending migrants in the United States. He also promised to bring the foreign ministry’s entire legal team.
Ebrard told reporters of the proposed event:
“It’s to agree upon actions to defend our compatriots, especially in Florida as of the first day, due to the application of regulations and laws that are clearly racist and are very likely to unfortunately give rise to abuses against Spanish-speaking people.”
Undersecretary for North America, Roberto Velasco, echoed Ebrard, writing in the newspaper Excélsior:
“In the case of Florida, in spite of the enormous contributions and simbiosis of the Mexican and Latin American communities, our compatriots confront a hostile climate that threatens to hinder their access to basic services and the exercise of their fundamental rights. The new law criminalizes our paisanos and our Latin American brothers and sisters. In essence, as Secretary Ebrad has said, it’s a racist law. … The defence of our nationals abroad is the top priority y and main obligation of our diplomacy.”
Mexican treatment of migrants in Mexico
AMLO’s criticism of the Florida migration law comes as Mexico continues to play its long-time role as migration enforcer for the United States. It’s a role some analysts have compared to Turkey with Europe, in which it’s paid to play enforcer – and can blackmail Europe by threatening to send waves of migrants.
As mentioned previously in this newsletter, the president continues to negotiate and strike deals with the United States to receive returned migrants from third countries. After Title 42 ended May 11, Mexico started sending migrants from northern states to its southern border with Guatemala.
AMLO continues to speak of visas for migrants wanting to live and work in Mexico. He once again offered visas for those wanting to work on his pet projects: a train circling the Yucatán Peninsula and an interoceanic corridor across the Isthmus of Oaxaca.
Advocates working with migrants in Mexico say the president presents two faces on the issue. He speaks of treating migrants well during his morning press conferences, but has been willing to deal on slowing migrants – in agreements never publicized on the Mexican side, but which have coincided with the delivery of COVID vaccines, deployments of National Guard members to the southern border with Guatemala, and participation in schemes such as Remain in Mexico.
Father Julio López, director of the Mexican bishops’ migrant ministry, told this newsletter:
“It’s a lovely discourse, but it’s totally the opposite in practice, and the president of Mexico many times has spoken in public of respecting the rights of Mexicans in the United States, but they don’t respect the rights of foreigners in Mexico.”
A March 27 inferno in a Mexican immigration detention centre in Ciudad Juárez claimed the lives of 40 migrants. Francisco Garduño, the National Immigration Institute commissioner, has been charged with “unlawful exercise of public office,” but remains in his post.
Garduño stirred indignation in Mexico last week, when he responded “yes” in response to a question whether he sleeps well after the fire. “I was 1,800 kilometres away from the event,” he said, adding:
“I couldn’t arrive in three minutes when the conflagration broke out, in which two Venezuelans intentionally caused the fire and employees of the national institute, irresponsibly, could not locate the key.”
AMLO PROMISES ACTION OF FENTANYL – SORT OF
AMLO has often deflected on the fentanyl question – even denying its manufactured in Mexico and bizarrely insisting that addictions don’t exist in the country. He’s called it a U.S. problem, but promised to help for humanitarian reasons – which explained a letter he sent to Chinese leader Xi Jinping asking for assistance in halting the export of chemical precursors. (China’s foreign ministry responded that no such trafficking occurs.)
The president surprising recognized in one of his meandering morning answers that fentanyl is made in Mexico – though he quickly attempted to deflect. He said May 24:
“Here there are, we’re going to say, laboratories where it is complemented and it’s sent to the United States. We’re combatting …”
A reporter followed up: “It simply becomes a semantic issue to say: 'Fentanyl is the precursors that come from China or the conversion in Mexico?”
AMLO responded: “Yes, but we don’t have. Yes, but we don’t produce the raw material.” He quickly turned to talking about the shortcomings of the U.S. media.
Two days later, AMLO said of fentanyl:
“We’re combatting the trafficking of these damaging chemicals. And there are reactions because previously the ports were taken over by criminals, Mexico’s ports, and now they’re being cleaned up. The navy secretariat is in charge of ports and we’re going to continue avoiding the entrance of fentanyl and other chemical precursors and also destroying laboratories.”
The president’s comments on fentanyl followed comments from White House security advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall that “Mexico significantly raised their game because they are now seeing the danger to their own country.” She added:
“Mexico is the principle pathway fentanyl is coming into our country”
But others in the Mexican government played dumb – or followed the president’s narrative on fentanyl. Public security undersecretary Luis Rodríguez Bucio told a public forum that Sherwood-Randal was misinformed, insisting:
“Asserting that much of the fentanyl that reaches the United States is through Mexico, one wonders where that data comes from. … I think maybe she doesn’t know where she gets that information from.”
AMLO promises to strike deal with China on fentanyl
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs committee recently approved a measure urging the State Department to classify fentanyl under the chemical weapons treaty. In response to a question on the matter, AMLO said May 26 that Mexico was supporting the U.S. on fentanyl for “humanitarian” reasons. He stated:
“We’re going to continue cooperating with the United States, helping the United States government in everything that is combatting drugs and especially combatting fentanyl. Among other reasons, and I believe that is the main reason, for humanitarian reasons because fentanyl does a lot of damage and many Americans lose their lives and regrettably, young people.
AMLO then let on that Mexico and China were about to establish an agreement “to avoid the entry of fentanyl from China into Mexico. We will do the same with South Korea.
The Chinese Embassy in Mexico responded with a strongly worded statement, urging Mexican media outlets to stop citing “western media reports and comments from U.S. functionaries to speculate that the so-called chemical precursors utilized by Mexican cartels to make fentanyl come from China.” The statement continued:
“They even described the so-called criminal process as if it were the real thing, inventing a plot in the style of Hollywood movies. Those statements are unfounded, confusing the facts and maliciously framing China.”
China: Stop bullying Mexico over fentanyl
The Chinese statement, published May 26, took a belligerent tone, accusing the United States of “bullying” Mexico. It also adopted the language of AMLO partisans with promises to help with “defence of sovereignty.” The statement largely complained of U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies, while claiming, “In international commerce, the importer is responsible for avoiding that chemical products flow toward drug production.” It continued:
“If the United States sincerely desires to resolve its drug problem, it should respect the facts, reflect on itself, correct its errors and stop eluding responsibility, and blaming everyone else.
“The Chinese side opposes the United States’ bullying of Mexico under the pretext of the fentanyl issue. We support Mexico firmly defending its sovereignty and its dignity.”