MEXICO CITY — President Trump known as Mexican migrants rapists, threatened his neighbor with a commerce struggle, kicked tens of 1000’s of asylum seekers in a foreign country, constructed up the border wall and promised to make Mexico pay for it.
Mexico’s president is an enormous fan.
So profound is his appreciation that when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador lastly bought on the cellphone for the primary time with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. final month, he made a degree of praising the departing president.
“I have to point out that we do have an excellent relationship with the now president of your nation, Mr. Donald Trump,” Mr. López Obrador stated, in keeping with two folks with data of the decision, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate inside issues. “No matter another concerns, he respects our sovereignty.”
Involved that Mr. Biden could be extra inclined to meddle in Mexican affairs, Mr. López Obrador has spent the final a number of weeks preemptively poking the incoming administration within the eye.
He was among the many final international leaders to congratulate Mr. Biden on his victory, insisting on ready “till all of the authorized points are resolved.” He not too long ago signed a legislation gutting the flexibility of U.S. drug brokers to behave in Mexico. After which, out of nowhere, Mr. López Obrador supplied Julian Assange asylum.
His authorities additionally exonerated a former Mexican protection secretary charged with drug trafficking by American prosecutors, allegations the president stated had been “fabricated” by investigators who “didn’t act responsibly.”
Behind all these perceived slights is a worry that the Democrats usually tend to intervene to advertise labor rights and clear power, getting in the best way of Mr. López Obrador’s bold agenda at residence, in keeping with two officers in his authorities who spoke on the situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals.
“It’s like a canine on the park: He’s gnashing his enamel and threatening you and growling within the hope that you simply gained’t come shut,” stated Shannon O’Neil, a Mexico skilled on the Council on Overseas Relations. “He’s making an attempt to pre-emptively push again towards engagement by the incoming Biden administration.”
One of many shocking twists in a Trump presidency filled with them has been how a Mexican chief who ran on a leftist, populist platform and as soon as stated Mr. Trump “stokes racism” got here to treat him so extremely.
By all appearances, the connection is predicated extra on pragmatism than on any deep private friendship. The 2 males share a profound disinterest within the particulars of overseas coverage and located widespread goal in leaving one another alone.
The phrases of their deal could not have been written, however they had been clear. Mr. López Obrador enforced Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and in alternate, the US let him run Mexico as he happy.
In a current speech in Alamo, Texas, Mr. Trump bragged about what number of Mexican troopers Mr. López Obrador had despatched to police the border. “I wish to thank the nice president of Mexico,” he stated. “He is a good gentleman, a buddy of mine.”
On type, too, the leaders had been typically aligned. Each campaigned on a promise to root out a corrupt elite, gained with a coalition of voters disgusted with their nation’s institution and, as soon as in workplace, painted the media and the opposition as enemies of their motion.
Simply as Mr. Trump used Twitter to talk on to his base, Mr. López Obrador takes management of the narrative by holding two-hour information conferences on daily basis at which questions are sometimes requested by sympathetic tabloid reporters or YouTubers.
And in 2006, Mr. López Obrador spent months leveling accusations of fraud after he misplaced the presidential election, going so far as to carry a pretend inauguration for himself within the capital’s central sq..
“He’s, in a sure sense, similar to Trump,” stated Sergio Aguayo, one in every of Mexico’s main human rights activists. “The understanding between them was emotional and sensible.”
Mr. Biden is more likely to ask extra of Mr. López Obrador.
The president-elect is anticipating a surge of migration from Latin America within the coming yr, pushed by the worldwide financial disaster and the notion of a extra sympathetic ear within the White Home, in keeping with a number of folks conversant in his considering. On Sunday, Guatemalan troopers beat again a caravan of 1000’s of Central Individuals touring north from Honduras and hoping to achieve the US.
Mexico, which mobilized additional safety forces at its southern border to arrange for this newest caravan, is seen as essential to holding off new waves of migrants. And with the pandemic nonetheless raging, the Biden administration will even want Mr. López Obrador’s cooperation in instituting extra coronavirus testing and tracing for individuals who cross the southern border.
However Mr. Biden is unlikely to resort to threats or public humiliation to get Mexico to do what he needs — and that provides Mr. López Obrador a gap to attempt to set the tone for a extra standoffish relationship early on.
Whereas the Mexican president says he needs to keep up “a great neighbor coverage” with the superpower on the border, he has additionally criticized his predecessors for being “servile and irresponsible when it comes to implementing our sovereignty.”
Within the current blowup over Mexico’s resolution to not press prices towards the previous Mexican protection secretary, whom the US accuses of working for a drug cartel, Mr. López Obrador defended himself by lashing out at American officers. He accused them of conducting “an investigation so irresponsibly and with out proof.”
His actual objective, analysts say, could also be to stoke the resentment of the Mexican public towards American intervention within the drug struggle.
“He’s making an attempt to activate a sure anti-American streak,” stated Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst and affiliate professor at CIDE, a Mexican college. If he’s profitable, it might turn into simpler to reject U.S. affect over his authorities.
“They’re going to stress López Obrador to vary sure insurance policies,” Mr. Bravo Regidor stated, “and López Obrador goes say: ‘See? They’re making an attempt to intervene in our inside affairs. And we’re not going to permit it.’”