The United States is Mexico’s number one trading partner. Last year alone, the two countries conducted a total of $580 billion in trade in goods and services. A million people cross the border legally every day. And yet, former President Vicente Fox, a self-described conservative, seems intent on jeopardizing our close ties to our friend and ally to the north.
President Fox has developed a bizarre obsession with Donald Trump over the last two years, with over half of his recent tweets being disparaging criticisms directed at the U.S. President. Just a few weeks ago, he teamed up with an American progressive media outlet, ‘Super Deluxe’, to release a profanity-filled video rant, the second he has produced on their YouTube channel within the last few months.
What is even stranger is that as President of Mexico, Fox did away with a long standing foreign policy practice known as the “Estrada Doctrine”, under which the Mexican government refrained from publicly judging the actions of foreign government on internal political matters, even those which affected Mexico. The Fox administration replaced this with the “Castañeda Doctrine”, which took a much more assertive and interventionist approach towards Mexico’s foreign relations. It should be noted that after a series of much publicized foreign policy blunders, not unlike those which Mr. Fox accuses President Trump of, including spats with Cuba and heavy criticism from other Latin American countries, the doctrine was abandoned by the administration of his presidential successor. Then, President Fox was all about putting his country first. So why is he now so shocked a U.S. President plans to do the same?
Sadly, these attitudes are not reserved to President Fox. The Mexican right, rather than celebrating the fact a like-minded individual has been elected, has instead been whipped up into a jingoistic, anti-American fervor, accusing the center-left President, Enrique Peña Nieto, of being too soft on Trump. Far from this, Nieto has in fact developed a remarkably poor relationship with President Trump, with Trump reportedly lambasting him for his lack of cooperation on tackling the flow of illegal drugs into the United States during a phone call between the two leaders earlier this year.
If President Fox genuinely wants to stand up for Mexico and its people, he should reach out to his many contacts within the U.S. Congress on both sides of the aisle and urge them to work with President Trump on reforming the United States’ legal immigration system, tackling U.S. objections regarding trade between the two countries and boosting U.S. investment in Mexico. He should also work with his allies in the National Action Party to put pressure on the Mexican government to act in a more collaborative and productive manner in its dealings with the United States. It is imperative that we understand the United States is the senior partner in our relationship and that it is important to accommodate their entirely reasonable concerns about border security and the trade deficit.
It is within the interest of both countries to put the current dispute behind them as soon as possible and work together for a stronger and more prosperous North America. To make Mexico great, we must make America great again.
Eduardo Rivero Puente is a conservative activist and businessman from Mexico City. He is currently the executive editor to The Liberty Conservative, and was formerly the Chair of ‘México para Donald Trump.’