Trump defends a US-Mexican immigration agreement while he claims to have "got nothing"

President Donald Trump and his allies proclaimed Sunday the victory in the stalemate over tariffs after the Mexican government appears to have secured significant commitments from the Mexican government to stem the flow of Central American migrants to the US border.

The agreement gave Trump new ammunition against his critics, who pointed out that his controversial bargaining tactics had yielded far fewer results than promised on several issues during his tenure.

It remains to be seen whether the agreement will significantly reduce the number of migrants entering the United States.

Nevertheless, this nevertheless represents a serious effort by Mexico to do more on a key issue in Mr Trump's re-election campaign after threatening to impose a 5% generalized tariff on one of the major trading partners of the states. -United.

Mexico announced on Friday night that it will implement "strong measures" to reduce the flow of migrants on its territory to the US southern border, including the unprecedented deployment of thousands of soldiers from the United States. Mexican National Guard.

He also agreed to expand a program allowing migrants from Central America to stay in Mexico pending the settlement of their asylum application.

"The President accused in his dialogue with Mexico of tariff threats, brought them to the table," said Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

"Mexico's Minister of Foreign Affairs arrived in a few hours. He arrived the next day with real proposals on the table. This is the first time we have heard about this kind of law enforcement in Mexico to deal with migration. "

As US-Mexican arrests escalate and President Trump attacks Democrats, foreign governments and US law, Homeland Security officials are under enormous pressure to stop boom of migration.

Efforts by the Trump administration to discourage migration were unsuccessful: they were either defeated in court or failed in Congress. And Mexican officials swept away some of the previous demands of the president.

Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Mexico in order to gain weight in immigration negotiations has prompted criticism from lawmakers in the two major parties, who have called the escalation a dangerous threat to the economy. US.

However, in the morning tweets, President Trump said that Mexico "was not cooperative at the border" before the agreement reached on Friday.

Now, he said, "I am fully confident, especially after talking to their president yesterday, that they will be very cooperative and that they want to do the job properly."

Trump said he could propose reimposing tariffs if Mexico does not keep its promises.

Some aspects of the agreement, he added, have yet to be announced – "one in particular", he said, "will be announced in due course".

The president's tweet seemed to allude to a possible element of the agreement that would transform asylum rules in the region and encourage applicants to seek refuge in the first country they visit.

Such an agreement would allow the United States to deport most asylum seekers from Guatemala to Mexico, while those from Honduras and El Salvador would be sent to Guatemala.

Homeland Security officials believe that such an arrangement would result in a dramatic drop in the number of migrants arriving each month at the US border. These migrants are usually released when they have a child with them.

Democrats criticized the deal as additional evidence of the president's anti-immigration agenda, while wondering what impact it would have.

"These are agreements that Mexico has already concluded, in some cases a few months ago," said Beto O'Rourke, presidential candidate, in an interview ABC& # 39; S "This week".

"They may have stepped up the schedule, but overall, the president has not achieved anything except to jeopardize the US's most important trade relationship."

Immigrant rights advocates said on Sunday that it was important that the United States and Mexico pledge to invest resources in Central America, but that the deal should not be attacked. not the root cause of the problem, namely, poverty and violence in the region, which migrants are. leak.

"In general, I do not think this agreement is drifting the flood," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Forum for Immigration, during an interview.

"The situation in Central America is quite serious. In modern history, there is no example of our ability to emerge from this migration crisis.

But those who support a harder line on immigration said that the deal was a positive sign.

"I think Mexico sees that our two countries have a common interest in putting a stop to this situation," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors restricted immigration.

"We'll see in a few months if that makes a difference, but I think so. I am cautiously optimistic. "

Homeland Security officials said the agreement, if fully implemented, would be a breakthrough in their push for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to take a tougher approach to control. .

In particular, the commitment to deploy 6,000 National Guard forces in southern Mexico may make it more difficult for smugglers to continue to transport groups of Central American migrants on buses, with little intervention by the authorities.

Mexico has also given badurances to expand detention centers for immigrants and to reinforce deportation efforts.

The newly formed National Guard was created by President López Obrador, mainly in response to national pressure to reduce crime and the increasing homicide rate in Mexico. That's why he has forced these forces to enforce immigration law – what Mr. López Obrador has described as "dirty work" last year for the United States – equates to a important concession, which has been criticized.

Mexico had already promised to use the National Guard, but the size of the deployment is much larger than that proposed by the government.

US officials also view the full expansion of the Migrant Protection Program (MPP), known unofficially as the "Rest of Mexico", as a factor of difference, potentially allowing them to require thousands of claimants to Additional asylum wait outside the US territory while their claims for protection are fully adjudicated, a process that can take years.

To date, Mexico has resisted US efforts to extend the program across the border.

The program has so far survived court challenges, but a panel of Californian federal judges has questioned its legality, and homeland security officials have prepared for an injunction that could end the program.

For US officials, the question is whether the agreement will result in a rapid reduction in the number of unauthorized border crossings required by Mr. Trump and whether it will be sustained once the president's threats are appeased.

Over the weekend, this agreement prompted congressional Republicans to ask for an update on Trump's new North American trade agreement, which is yet to be approved by Congress.

Rob Portman, a member of the Senate Finance Committee and former US Trade Representative, said in a statement Friday that he hoped the agreement on migration "would clear the way for the House and Senate to move quickly to the US-Mexican-Canadian trade agreement ". .

The White House has reached a milestone this month to begin the congressional approval process, but Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi warned last Wednesday that approval was in doubt in the House unless that several concerns about the negotiated agreement are taken into account.

"We hope to have a way to achieve a positive result," she told reporters. "But the implementation must be part of the agreement, not an accompanying letter or invoices that we could adopt in each country – a part of it. agreement."

A Democratic official, who requested anonymity to describe internal conversations, said Sunday that the migration agreement was "totally irrelevant" to the concerns of leaders about the USMCA.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, appeared relieved during televised debates on Sunday.

Senator Roy Blunt, who spoke out against Trump's tariff threats, described the deal as "a great victory for both sides" and said he was sending a message to China, whose leaders are quarreling. with the president about trade.

"Even though I'm not a big fan of tariffs, he does it and his willingness to use it has probably contributed to a result," Blunt said in "Face the Nation."

"I hope we will not have to come back to this as a problem with Mexico."

With an apparently positive result in hand, Mr. Trump still could not avoid selling the deal.

In a tweet Saturday morning, the president said that Mexico had agreed to "immediately start buying large quantities of agricultural products from our major agricultural producers!".

But Mexico's ambbadador to the United States, Martha Barcena, refused to confirm the story.

In an interview on CBS'Face the Nation', she only said that the trade in agricultural products "will develop without customs duties and with the ratification of the USMCA".

"But I understand that you say there was no signed transaction under this agreement," asked host Margaret Brennan. "You are only talking about trade."

Mrs. Barcena nodded several times before answering. "I am talking about trade, and I am absolutely certain that trade in agricultural products will increase significantly over the next few months," she said.

Later, in a tweet, Ms. Barcena baderted that she "had not contradicted" Trump on the issue, pointing out the hesitation of Mexican officials to criticize the president so soon after he shunned a major trade war.

Washington Post