Democrats lashed out in all directions at President Trump after he won concessions from Mexico to try to stop the flow of illegal immigrants at the border.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chided the president Saturday for his method, saying his threat of tariffs was unbecoming of a friendly country’s treatment of a neighbor.
But Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer took a different approach, saying — seemingly with as much sarcasm as can drip on Twitter — that since Mr. Trump has struck a deal, he can stop talking about illegal immigration.
“Now that that problem is solved, I’m sure we won’t be hearing any more about it in the future,” Mr. Schumer said.
Just days before Mr. Schumer had predicted Mr. Trump would cave and find a reason to revoke his tariff threat.
But the threat appears to have worked both to bring Mexico to the negotiating table and to win concessions that the Mexican government had been reluctant to agree to, including cooperating with the U.S. to hold Central American asylum-seekers while they are awaiting their cases in the U.S.
Mexico did, however, resist signing a “safe third country” agreement that would have allowed the U.S., of right, to return any non-Mexican asylum-seekers who crossed Mexico en route to the U.S.
Mexico did agree to revisit its actions over the next 90 days to see if they are working.
Mrs. Pelosi had opposed Mr. Trump’s goal of getting Mexico to hold onto asylum-seekers, saying it violated the migrants’ rights.
She said the U.S has a broader role to play in stopping the smuggling networks that orchestrate the flow of people.
And she said Mr. Trump was wrong to use tariffs to force compliance.
“President Trump undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south,” she said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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