Mr. Trump, Meet Señor Trump-Like

There are very distinct differences. One has had political responsibility before: as mayor of one of the largest cities on earth: Mexico City. The other, a reality television personality and real estate mogul. One is on the left, but very pragmatic; the other seems to be on the right with inexperience flashing, inconsistencies rampant.

And similarities. America First vs Mexico First. Zealous populist followings: one dragging right wing religious zealots and mega-wealthy conservatives while the other holds disdain for fat cats and elites. Both claim they will drain their respective swamps of corrupt insiders and plutocrats, but the American has populated his inner circle with fat cats and maintains his own private wealth and holdings without much separation. We have yet to see what the new president-elect of Mexico will actually do. Is it going to be U.S. President Donald J Trump vs. Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Or a friendship. Guess!

The Los Angeles Times editorial board (July 3^rd) notes some disturbing common traits between these two leaders as well: “Many of Lopez Obrador’s statements and stances are worrisome — and familiar. He dismisses the importance of independent government institutions such as courts and presents himself, rather than laws or a strong civil society, as the cure for what ails Mexico. Corruption would evaporate, he told voters, under the weight of his personal example of incorruptibility. He alone could rescue the country, he proclaimed — echoing President Trump’s statement to the Republican National Convention two years ago that ‘nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.’

“Trump’s brand of populism is ostensibly rooted in the political right and Lopez Obrador’s in the left, yet the U.S. president and the Mexican president-elect have in common their contempt for the political establishment and their focus on the politics of personality. Might that unite them and pave the way for progress on both sides of the border? The odds seem long, but anything is possible. It would have been hard to guess even a year ago that Trump would be sitting down with North Korean President Kim Jong Un — or disparaging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Nor is it possible to say what the state of those relationships will be in a year’s time.”

But Obrador is unlikely to become Trump’s patsy. He is more likely than any Mexican leader in recent history to care about offending the United States. While the new Mexican President is acutely aware that the U.S. pumps about $100 million a year into Mexico’s anti-drug cartel Merida Initiative, he also knows that The Donald wants to build a wall (and make Mexico pay for it), is busy throwing Mexican nationals out of the U.S. as fast as he can, and is fond of accusing those Mexicans crossing the border (along with an increasing number of Central Americans) of being rapists, criminals and dangerous gangbangers. Most are just poor people in desperate straits.

Trump claims Mexico is “sending” these undesirables north into the United States, even as Mexican authorities turned back about 150 thousand Central Americans last year who would have otherwise crossed into the U.S. Trump never talks about the fact that the cartels exist because the U.S. cannot get control of its illicit drug-craving population and because the cartels can get amazing guns simply by buying them in the U.S. and smuggling them south. The Donald also wants to punish Mexico, which is a very big importer of American goods, by making NAFTA a much harsher trade agreement that he wants to favor the U.S. American tariffs? Not too friendly either.

As the world is slowly learning that appeasing the big bully Trump only encourages him to push for more, there is increasing global resistance to “America First.” Noting that China and much of Asia are pushing back against Trump at every level, that Canada and Europe are increasingly aligning against U.S. demands and policies, notwithstanding the warm and friendly congratulatory telephone call between these two leaders, Obrador knows how unpopular Trump is with his constituency… and is exceptionally likely to push back as well.

While Obrador is a leftist populist, he’s not like the extremists leading Venezuela and Bolivia. He understands the need for business to success, for entrepreneurs to be encouraged and for a pragmatic relationship with his neighbor to the north. But he is certainly no friend to the mega-wealthy elites who run Mexico as their personal fiefdom. He has his eyes focused on sending some very strong signals to those massively corrupt government and is about to take on militaristic narco-cartels, with cops, judges and even military officers on their payrolls, to counter the incredible and murderous violence that plagues his country. He is not affiliated with the main political parties that have dominated Mexico for a very long time, won by a landslide, and he represents the frustration of the majority of very poor Mexicans who feel that they have no hope against the violence and corruption around them.

At a time when political popularity in countries around the world depends increasingly on taking on Donald Trump, there are few betting that Obrador is going to make nice-nice with The Donald. And knowing he’s got lots of friends all over the planet to support him, you can pretty much bet that Obrador will make this relationship turn sour fast. “Lopez Obrador has repeatedly said he hopes to forge a relationship ‘based on friendship’ with the U.S. But in rallies around the country in the months leading up to his election, he also expressed his frustration with the treatment of Latino immigrants in the U.S. and the devastating effect of low-cost American agricultural imports on Mexico’s farmers.

“Born to shopkeepers in Tabasco, an agrarian and oil-rich state in southern Mexico that has seen little benefit from NAFTA compared with Mexico’s north, Lopez Obrador views free-market policies and trade with the U.S. with suspicion. He believes working families have been left behind, and wants to push Mexico to be more independent in its production of food and gasoline.

“He is also an amateur historian who has frequently highlighted the United States’ past aggressions against his country… In 2016 he published a book about Catarino Garza, a Mexican revolutionary who launched a campaign into Mexico from Texas to start an uprising against the dictator Porfirio Diaz in the late 19th century. In the text, Lopez Obrador laments U.S. President James Polk’s expansionist efforts, which he calls ‘a Yankee invasion,’ and the ‘tragic’ loss of a large part of Mexico’s territory. He goes on to quote Mexican norteño band Los Tigres del Norte: ‘I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me.’

“‘I think he has a read of Mexican history in which the relationship with the U.S. has not always been helpful,’ [says Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute and the author of a recent book about U.S.-Mexico relations]. ‘When he looks at U.S.-Mexico history, he reads it as a history of aggressiveness.’” Los Angeles Times, July 3^rd. With an historical memory like that, that cannot be a good sign for normalized relations. I think the bigger question is how badly the bridges between two once-friendly nations will be burned in an expected head-to-head clash of these two titans.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we may rapidly approaching the time when America’s increasing isolationism and open hostility on economic and political levels around the world may soon slam into the U.S. lack a Mack truck with a stuck accelerator pedal.