President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that he would send a letter to former United States president Donald Trump about migration and the importance of economic integration in North America, after Trump gave a fiery anti-migrant speech at the U.S. Republican National Convention.
“I’m going to send a letter … to my friend Donald Trump because I think they’re not informing him well about the migration issue and also about the importance of maintaining economic integration between the United States, Mexico and Canada,” AMLO told reporters at his morning press conference, in response to the U.S. presidential candidate’s speech.
His remarks came after Trump told attendees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that he intended to close the United States’ southern border with Mexico on “Day 1” if elected to a second term as U.S. president.
López Obrador said he would “prove” to Trump that migrants aren’t smuggling drugs into the United States.
“This is a despicable lie,” he said. “Migrants go to the United States to work, honorably.”
López Obrador also said he would remind Trump that the United States “was established and became a power thanks to migrants from all over the world.”
“They arrived and made a very prosperous country. This must be made clear,” he said.
AMLO, who maintained a cordial relationship with Trump during his 2017-21 presidency, said he would also inform the Republican Party presidential candidate that “economic integration helps us, and nothing is resolved by closing the border” between Mexico and the United States, which are each other’s largest trade partner.
“What’s more, [the border] cannot and must not [be closed],” he said.
The border — across which almost US $2 billion worth of goods are transported every day — “would not bear being closed for one month!” López Obrador said.
“They wouldn’t put up with it. Not the farmers, not the manufacturers, not the investors in the United States, not the workers in the United States,” AMLO said.
“It would affect us as well, but it would affect them more,” he said.
As Trump is “an intelligent man with vision,” López Obrador continued, “I know he will change his way of thinking.”
After once again lamenting the assassination attempt on Trump last Saturday and claiming he was the first world leader to condemn the attack, AMLO said he would send his letter to the Republican party candidate next week.
“It’s not about fighting, it’s about speaking the truth and having knowledge of reality,” he said.
Earlier this week, López Obrador said that gun control is urgently needed in the United States, and suggested that U.S. President Joe Biden and former president Trump should both pledge to impose greater regulations on the sale of firearms.
Smugglers move large numbers of guns from the United States into Mexico, where they often end up in the hands of criminal organizations that send illicit drugs and migrants north.
United States government data released this week indicated a significant decline in the number of migrants attempting to illegally enter the U.S. via Mexico since Biden implemented a new border policy in early June, but illegal immigration is still set to be a major issue in the U.S. presidential election.
What did Trump say about Mexico during his nomination acceptance speech?
Just five days after his right ear was grazed by a bullet shot by a 20-year-old gunman as he spoke at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Trump formally accepted the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.
During a lengthy nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, the 45th U.S. president made a number of implicit and explicit references to Mexico. Below is a selection of those remarks.
On migrants entering the United States via the border with Mexico
“We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
On his plan to end the immigration “crisis”
“I will end the illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and finishing the wall, most of which I’ve already built.”
“… At the heart of the Republican platform is our pledge to end this border nightmare, and fully restore the sacred and sovereign borders of the United States of America. And we’re going to do that on Day 1. That means two things on Day 1, right? Drill, baby, drill and close our borders.”
On the USMCA trade pact
“I got rid of NAFTA the worst trade deal ever made and replaced it with USMCA, which is, they say, the best trade deal ever made.”
On Chinese automakers’ (proposed) production of cars in Mexico
“Right now as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico. So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything. The United Autoworkers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast.”
* Chinese automakers including BYD and Solarever Electric Vehicles have announced plans to open plants in Mexico. But construction has not yet commenced on any of the announced plants.
Mexico News Daily
There’s a legal entry and Mexico requires legal entry. It’s all about respecting the laws of a country. That makes you a good citizen or not.
AMLO’s comments in his letter to tRump are spot on, but I suggest that he send it by means of a messenger who read it to him, if you get my drift.
oh, Peter “principle” please . . . ALMO needs to send a “strongly worded” letter, just like is done in most if not all the US Congressional “concerns” to. . . Mayorkas, Wray, Milley, heck even John “Kobar Towers” Brennen . . . if you get my drift???
Apparently AMLO needs a new interpreter his remarks clearly are and have always been about illegal activity. Maybe AMLO believes closing the border to criminality would be bad for Mexico but that would not be worse for the US? Also, not complicated…just like MX, the US has laws and he plans to enforce them.
The reality is that the US economy depends on immigrant labor and Trump’s immigration “plan” is nothing more than red meat for his racist voting base, none of whom are willing to do the work the immigrants do. These are honest people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. They pay rent and they pay taxes and make it possible for people in the US to have an abundance food on their tables. The US is a country that was built on the backs of immigrants and they should be welcomed and allowed to emigrate legally, just like all the groups that came before them.
Amen!
100%
Nice exercise in false equivalency.
Perfect comment.
Wonderfully stated. Trump is a pendejo
Agree!
Throughout history Any Nation that has accepted vast amounts of migrants legal or illegal was a disaster for that country. No country today that I know of accepts illegal migrants like the United States has done for the past 4 years. Every time this happens the wages of the citizens who are born in that country go down and we’re talking about the middle class and lower wage earners because the migrants will work for Less. The middle class in the United States is quickly disappearing. Mexico would never allow anything like what has happened in the United States. As a matter of fact over the last 5 years it has become extremely difficult for an American citizen or anyone to receive temporary or permanent residents in Mexico. I know in 2019 I applied for temporary residence and then permanent residence. I never would have become a permanent resident after Mexico raised the amount of money necessary to become a permanent resident
Exactly
At the heart of this is Mexico has allowed itself to be a gateway for illegal immigration from all over the world into the U.S. with very negative results for both countries. It is false equivalency to equate the legal immigration mostly from the developed world that built the U.S. with the illegal immigration mostly from the third world that is now occurring. The latter has built nothing from where they came from and will only tear down the U.S. to the detriment of Mexico which, like it or not, is very economically dependent on the former.
Nobody in this hemisphere needs that kind of immigration. Nobody. At some point we need to simply tell people we cannot solve your problems for you by having you overrun us and it is time for you to stay at home and fix them yourselves.
I don’t think the immigrants today are any different from the poor and starving that left Ireland and Italy at the turn of the 20th century. I think you’re romanticizing. The Irish and Italians (just as even earlier German and Swedish immigrants) were not highly educated middle class migrants. They were the relatively poor, uneducated masses and not much different from our current immigrants. They were all demonized dehumanized then as well as now
Ilegal migration paid for by U.S. taxpayers is not beneficial. The taxpayers’ backs are broken and the $35 trillion debt is evidence.
I do not disagree at all that the U.S. needs to have better gun control. AMLO is correct about that. However, to be fair, running for office in Mexico seems to be one of the most dangerous jobs that a person could consider. How many candidates were murdered this last election?
Yes this election 30 people running for office were murdered…..usually at the county level.
How many journalists??
López Obrador should save his time. Trump is a demented total insane nut bag who, now, it seems will be going to jail and not to the White House. No one informs him of anything, he doesn’t listen; he doesn’t need help: he is the Son Of God, so he knows everything. BUT, Hey, Thank YOU! Donald Trump, for making it possible/likely that the USA will have a sorta ethnic/Black/Whatever Female as President. Without that nut job, it wouldn’t be possible.
Judy keep your delusional thoughts & opinions in your garbage can. Harris will not be President & the Cartels must be dealt with by Mexico if they are ever going to give their citizens peace.
How about whatever a country imposes on immigration to United States Citizens, then their citizens are subject to the same requirements to be in the United States. The drug chemicals coming into Mexico from China must be dealt with by Trade barriers to China by Mexico for allowing its production in China. Trade between the United States & Mexico will be worked out as it always is.
Trump was good for the United States Economic well being & helped Mexico’s economy in same regard. What Biden & Harris has done to the United States on illegal immigrationfor countries other than Mexico is a true crime, Safety for our citizens & terrible inflation is a total disaster. So, He’ll No your current Fool Vice President will not be the next President. She will fold like a dish rag as election happens.
AMLO will no longer be president at the end of the year, and thanks to our new nominee Kamala, neither will Trump. We’re putting Maggie behind us dusting off our hands, brushing off our clothes, and moving on.
“MAGA” , and Maggie whoever that is