«Agreement»: sale of migrants and sovereignty for the price of tariffs
By: IWL North and Central American organisations
06/11/2019
The week that has just ended, the Mexican and Central American peoples on all sides of the southern and northern borders of Mexico have experienced moments of anxiety, indignation and disappointment.
It all started with a “Tweet” from Trump, who runs the White House while he was traveling in Europe. He launched the threat of increasing import tariffs to Mexico month after month, to force Mexico to be a wall and U.S. police against Central American migrants and refugees. This threat, if materialized, meant the violation of the recent T-MEC Free Trade Agreement, signed by the outgoing Peña Nieto government with the unconditional and active support of AMLO when he was about to take over. Moreover, in compliance with the conditions that T-MEC imposed on Mexico and that Trump was preparing to violate, AMLO reformed this year the Constitution of Mexico, the nation’s “Magna Carta”. Those reforms were to impose the National Guard and the “new” Federal Labor Law.And in the face of blackmail of increasing tariffs, how did the “Fourth Transformation “government react? Perhaps denouncing the violation of the T-MEC and announcing reciprocal measures to imports from the U.S. ? AMLO started by saying “I’m not timorous or cowardly”. But immediately he changed to a conciliatory tone with the “orange boss” and urgently sent his Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard to ask for mercy from the U.S. His behavior reflects the “panic of the markets” and the tears of the Mexican oligarchs, for whom he governs. Once again, he shows more concern for the Stock Exchange and the dollar, than for the needs of the poor of Mexico and Central America.From the moment Ebrard initiated the so-called “negotiations” in Washington, our migrant brothers and sisters have suffered the intensification of a brutal hunt and grievances. Not only from U.S. border agents , but also from federal police and Mexican migration agents. While AMLO continued to speak every morning of “respect and friendship to find a suitable agreement for both countries and governments” and convene an event in Tijuana “For the unity and dignity of Mexico,” his government secretaries attacked , criminalizing migrants . In tune with them, AMLO ordered to militarize the southern border, enlisting 6,000 National Guard troops to be sent to the border with Guatemala and Belize. That is, while Trump builds a concrete wall in the North, Mexico erects a military wall in the South. AMLO’s government is making Mexico play a sad U.S. gendarme role : a concentration camp for Central American migrants. Huge shame for the traditional hospitality of Mexico, which was always a bulwark of the right of asylum. The worst part is that they want to present this capitulation before the imperialist master as a “great triumph of the dignity and sovereignty of Mexico.” The multitudinous act of Tijuana, after this historic crouch, was a farce for the “celebration” of having achieved that tariffs do not rise and that the juicy businesses of the big exporting companies are not affected. ! Most of them transnational and from the U.S.! .. And if humiliation was not enough, Trump has just confessed that “there are still secret clauses of the Agreement that will be informed at the right time”.The people of Mexico are not responsible for this submission nor do they deserve this shame on their behalf. The repression committed by the government of Morena and AMLO is totally unacceptable. Migrants and refugees flee from death in the Central American hell caused by Yankee imperialist plunder. The same that expels millions of Mexicans into exile to survive. The people of Mexico deserve respect and defense from their own government. AMLO himself had to acknowledge that his country receives 35 billion dollars in remittances per year contributed by Mexican workers in the U.S. Accepting that they repress and criminalize Central American migrants is to agree with the way that all the governments of the United States. (Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump) have been humiliating, persecuting, criminalizing and deporting millions of migrants, most of Mexican origin. AMLO’s government in fact approves the persecution and abuse that Trump commits against his countrymen inside the U.S. The PRI and PAN governments accepted these humiliations. Despite the “hopes”, AMLO has not done anything about the mistreatment, racist insults and deportations of millions of Mexicans.We repudiate the TRUMP-AMLO agreement, which without declaring it assigns Mexico the role of “third safe country” for migrants and refugees. That denomination hides the fact of annulling the right of asylum in the U.S. Let’s not allow Mexico to be a concentration camp for the peoples of Central America. Immediate end to persecutions and deportations! No migrant is illegal! Common Defense and unified Solidarity of the peoples of Latin America.
From the CST of Mexico, Workers Voice and Corriente Obrera of USA, PCT of El Salvador, PST of Honduras, IWL organizations : we call for mobilization of the immigrant communities, in coordination with pro-immigrant organizations and democratic and independent trade unions in the United States, Mexico and Central America; to confront the anti-immigrant, anti-worker and racist measures of the Trump-AMLO agreement and the servile attitude of the Central American governments.
