By: Leon Krauze ~ The Washington Post ~ June 8, 2020
A high-level official in Mexico’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the visit is indeed a possibility. If health conditions do not improve, I was told, the government of Mexico would seek a virtual meeting.
If López Obrador does travel to Washington, it would be a first. He hasn’t left Mexico since coming into office in December 2018. But even if the meeting takes place in a virtual format, it would be a serious blunder.
Former Mexican ambassador Arturo Sarukhán told me it would be “suicidal for Mexico’s long-term and strategic relationship with the United States.” According to Sarukhán, López Obrador runs the risk of being perceived as a Trump ally. “He should not travel to the United States to meet with Trump on the eve of the general campaign," Sarukhán told me, later adding in an email: "He needs to understand that he will be used as a prop, just like his predecessor was.”
Sarukhán is thinking of 2016, when President Enrique Peña Nieto made one of the most inexplicable decisions in the history of modern Mexican foreign policy.
As Hillary Clinton held on to a six-point margin in the polls, Trump was looking for a boost, validation of his stature on the world stage. On Aug. 31, 2016, he got it from the unlikeliest partner: Peña Nieto, who decided to invite Trump to a hastily arranged meeting in Mexico City. After all, Trump had targeted Mexico from the very beginning, unleashing the now infamous “rapists” diatribe on the very launch of his presidential bid.
For Mexico’s president, it would be a historic mistake. After the confidential meeting, both men held a news conference. Peña Nieto allowed Trump to talk freely about the border wall, with no pushback whatsoever. Mexicans did not forgive the indignity. His approval rating fell to 24 percent and never recovered.
For Trump, the outcome was very different. The same day of the visit he flew back to a rally in Arizona, where he touted the success of the meeting and delivered one of the nastiest anti-immigrant speeches of the campaign. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jeff Sessions wore white MAGA-style hats that read “Make Mexico Great Again Also.”
It’s difficult to say whether the Mexico trip reignited Trump’s fledgling campaign, but it surely helped. Trump began a steady climb. Head-to-head polls tightened. By the end of September, his odds had improved to 30 percent.
The reaction, both in Mexican public opinion and the media, was close to unanimous: Trump had used Peña Nieto. López Obrador, then the country’s most relevant opposition leader, disapproved of Peña Nieto’s decision to host Trump. “We have to be careful,” López Obrador said. “We don’t want them to get involved in Mexico’s elections in the future.”
But now López Obrador might be about to follow in Peña Nieto’s steps.
Why would López Obrador, who was so critical of Peña Nieto’s decision to prop up Trump during a contentious election, risk international opprobrium and condemnation at home over the exact same mistake? It could simply be another step in the Mexican president’s strange appeasement of the American president, a plan that has led him to embrace controversial immigration measures far from the humanitarian approach he promised as a candidate.
Dan Restrepo, one of President Barack Obama’s main policy advisers on Latin America, questions the approach. “Do they really think Trump cares about Mexico? Please!” Restrepo told me. “You have to be very, very naive to think that this is anything other than part of an electoral strategy.”
Or perhaps López Obrador thinks he can play both sides of the table, betting on Trump without hurting his standing with former vice president Joe Biden, who seems, for now, to have a strong chance of winning, according to some polls.
This would also be a miscalculation. The Biden camp has taken notice of López Obrador’s plans. And it doesn’t seem pleased. On Sunday, Juan González, former special adviser to Biden on Latin America, took to Twitter to criticize the potential trip. “The visit shouldn’t happen, period,” González wrote. “If López Obrador thinks he’ll be anything other than a prop for the Trump campaign, he is either poorly advised or openly supporting re-election.” In an interview, González later told me López Obrador should know that Trump will use him politically. “That alone should discourage him,” he said.
To make matters worse, López Obrador has not announced any interest in meeting with Biden. Such a snub could prove costly. “This could damage the relationship between Mexico and potential president Biden and the Democrats,” González told me.
Indeed, the consequences for Mexico, and López Obrador himself, could be momentous. The Mexican president, Sarukhán told me, “must be seen, at least overtly, as an equal-opportunity cheerleader when it comes to the elections of Mexico’s most important diplomatic and economic partner.”
He is right. With months to go until the election, a friendly visit to the White House would send the wrong message.
López Obrador should avoid it.
Source: Leon Krauze ~ The Washington Post ~ June 8, 2020
