Perhaps President Trump’s most difficult international relationship is the one with Mexico.
Much of his campaign was based around building a border wall that Mexico would pay for.
And one thing that Mexico just did made that a lot harder, and will mean an all-out war with Trump.
Mexico has just concluded their presidential election, which served to be its bloodiest in history.
Over 130 political candidates and party workers were killed, with the eventual win going to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who goes by his initials, AMLO.
AMLO is seen as the leftist candidate in the race, and won handsomely, bringing in more than double the amount of votes his closest rival received.
The win was so clear that all of his opponents conceded before he was even declared the winner.
His win brought about a lot of questions about the future of Mexico. Being far-left, to the point that many see him as a socialist, the possibility of Mexico getting into the same issues plaguing Venezuela could be very real.
Venezuela is facing a major economic disaster, with many of their citizens starving in the streets and crime becoming rampant.
But while those problems will be for Mexico to handle, they could have a direct result on President Trump’s dealings with the country just on the other side of our southern border.
An economic crisis will almost certainly exacerbate the problems on the border with more economic migrants seeking work in the United States.
If this is to occur, AMLO is not going to be someone who is going to give any help to President Trump on the border.
While the current President of Mexico has held a somewhat cordial relationship with Trump, AMLO’s entire campaign was based on resisting him. On the campaign trail, AMLO went so far as to call Trump’s anti-illegal immigration stance as “racist.”
And even if Mexico’s economy doesn’t sink, the crisis at the border becoming worse is almost certain.
The largest growing group of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border has been from South American countries, and all of them had to cross through Mexico.
Mexico’s southern border currently is highly militarized and has been extremely helpful in preventing South American immigrants from getting into Mexico.
And even after they illegally crossed into Mexico, there are agents that operate similarly to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who track down illegal immigrants on the trek across Mexico.
An AMLO presidency has the possibility to strip away all of the help the U.S. has garnered from immigration enforcement occurring in Mexico.
It also makes the possibility of Mexico paying for a wall on the United States’ southern border much less likely.
While the former President of Mexico was willing to talk to Trump, AMLO is almost certainly going to be a much more difficult person to reason with.
But nothing is certain. President Trump has already done the impossible and at least talked a little bit of sense into North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. If he can do that, anything is possible.
Do you think that President Trump will be able to negotiate with Mexico’s new president?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
