President Trump lashed out at Mexico on Tuesday, accusing America’s southern neighbor of joining with Democrats in the U.S. to thwart his efforts to secure the border.
“Mexico’s attitude is that people from other countries, including Mexico, should have the right to flow into the U.S. & that U.S. taxpayers should be responsible for the tremendous costs associated w/this illegal migration,” the president said on Twitter.
“Mexico is wrong and I will soon be giving a response!” he said.
He did not suggest what response he had in mind.
Homeland Security officials publicly say they do feel Mexico is cooperating with them on specific security threats, and has accommodated Mr. Trump’s so-called “return-to-Mexico” policy by taking back some Central American asylum-seekers who traversed its territory to reach the U.S.
But Mexico has also been struggling to figure out a coherent policy for how to address the thousands of Central Americans surging across its own southern border each day, intending to try to reach the U.S.
Mr. Trump runs hot and cold on Mexico, sometimes praising it for the efforts it is making, and other times accusing it of undermining him.
Yet it’s not clear what levers he has to pull.
He has suggested he would close the southwestern border, though legal analysts debate his ability to do that in any systematic way — and it would spark a severe backlash from members of both parties on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Trump has also failed to get Mexico to agree to pay for his border wall plans. Instead, Mr. Trump has declared a national emergency in the U.S. to siphon money from military construction accounts to use to supplement the money Congress has doled out.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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