An expert on US-Mexico relations weighs in
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: December 11, 2024
Host: Speaking of immigration: Dr. Tony Payan is a border guy. He has taught political science and done a lot of research on both sides of the Rio Grande — or Bravo, if you like. He sat on cross-border panels in El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and Houston, and he has served on a US-Mexico energy initiative. Tomorrow night, he will be in Sarasota to share insights about U.S. relations with our southern neighbors, as a new administration takes the reins in Washington in January. We talked to him by phone today.
Johannes Werner: The first Trump administration dealt with our southern neighbors as a nuisance at best, and a threat at worst. What will be our relations with Latin America and Mexico once Donald Trump is in the White House and Marco Rubio heads the US Department of State?
Payan sees four areas the Trump administration will focus on.
Tony Payan: In regards to Latin America, I think there are some very specific things that he’s going to be paying attention to. I think one of them is obviously drug trafficking. It affects the United States extensively. Over 100,000 million Americans die of fentanyl overdoses every year. Even though the number has ticked down, I think it’s still something that he’ll pay attention to. He didn’t pay attention to that in the first term, but I suspect that he will this time.
Tony Payan
Immigration will continue to be really important. Some of the folks that are very anti-immigrant are coming back, Stephen Miller being one of them. He’s now going to be in the White House as well, advising on this particular policy. And there is border czar Holland, who I think will also be quite attentive to that. So we might see an increase in deportations. And even the review of the current immigration policies of the United States, that will affect Venezuelans and Cubans, and I think Central Americans and, of course, Mexicans, not just those that are coming in. I think the numbers are going to go down, but also the potential raids that might be conducted in work sites in the United States, and so that is going to be an important issue.
The third issue that I think he’ll pay a lot of attention to is going to be trade. Mr. Trump understands or believes that trade deficits by the United States are a sign of exploitation of the American market. China being the number one target, but I think Canada and Mexico, that also have important surpluses, trade surpluses with the United States, are going to be targets of his policies. Who knows what they will look like because obviously, trade surpluses and deficits are a matter of economic activity and not necessarily controllable by the White House. We saw with China, he concluded an agreement and it didn’t really go anywhere. So we’ll see what that looks like.
The fourth and last thing that I would draw attention to is Mr. Marco Rubio’s, I guess, designation as the Secretary of State. Mr. Rubio is, of course, Cuban American; he has very much in mind what’s been going on in Latin America. He’s already spoken to it, and he has already said that the administration will create a coalition of Latin American leaders who are amenable to U. S. interests. I’m guessing he’s thinking Bukele in El Salvador and perhaps Millei in Argentina and such leaders, and I think he’s already kind of warned that Mexico’s realignment of its foreign policy with Cuba and Venezuela are not acceptable, so I suspect the State Department will be a lot more active.
These will be tough times for Mexico, which just elected its first woman president. There’s a couple of things that Mr. Trump is going to pay a lot of attention to, as I mentioned, in regards to Mexico. One is going to be immigration. If immigration continues to drop — and it has under the Biden administration, the immigration flows through Mexico have gone down to about 40% of what they used to be at their peak.
If that goes down and continues to go down to a very small amount (it’s never going to be zero), I think Mr. Trump will be fairly satisfied. This is a promise he made, and as he said, “Promises made, promises kept.” So that’s going to be an important point.
And if he sees that fentanyl begins to also go down, and deaths by fentanyl overdoses go down, then I think he’ll be somewhat satisfied as well. And then they can sit down and renegotiate the free trade agreement with a lot more freedom. So you’ll see Mexico is more collaborative. I don’t think Mexico has a choice, by the way. I think Mexico is stuck in a corner. I think Mexico doesn’t really have a whole lot of leverage, and Mr. Trump has promised stiff tariffs on imports.
And so I think at the end, Mexico is going to have to fold and follow US designs. It’s going to be a very aggressive policy towards Mexico in particular. I mean, Mexico has been at the center of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and I think it will continue to be on that spot. So I think Mexico will just have to make some concessions, really important concessions if it wants to continue to have access to the American market.
JW: Tony Payan — who directs the US-Mexico program at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston — will address these issues in a talk hosted by the Sarasota World Affairs Council.
The event on Thursday night starts at 6:30 at the Mildred Sainer Pavilion at New College. The address is 5313 Bay Shore Road. Admission is free, but you will have to RSVP. You can do so by sending an email to info@sarasotawac.org.
Johannes Werner, reporting for WSLR News.
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