All over the world discussion is obviously intense in both public and official circles about the future attitude of the United States to countries in the hemisphere, in the light of doubts as to whether there would be the usual general policy continuity which governments have been accustomed to. For it has taken little calculation to assume that a candidate who has taken controversial policy stances at home would probably have similar kinds of attitudes to other countries.
What has been of concern, however, as the presidential campaign proceeded, was the decisiveness of the views of Donald Trump, in light of the fact that he, as essentially a major businessman, was not known to normally express opinions to the American public on the relations of his country with other major powers, and, in particular, countries of the hemisphere.
No doubt surprising to the government of Mexico, as a member with the United States and Canada of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) generally perceived in the hemisphere as a successful effort of integrating and stabilizing economic relations, was the early hostility during the campaign of Trump, a businessman, to the increasing integration of economic relations between the US and that country.
For the Mexicans themselves have always been conscious of the fact that the country’s increasingly closer economic relations with the United States have essentially been based on an impetus, or prodding, from United States administrations; and that the integration initiative, through institutionalized free trade, has occurred in a context in which there has been a certain resistance within Mexico itself to being tied, as it were, to the giant economy of its neighbour.
Trump’s imagery of a literal narrowing of relations through a physical closure of the border between the two countries, has therefore been obviously considered by the Mexicans as perhaps a reversal of a planned and mutually agreed process of balanced economic integration relations between the two countries, directed, in the perception of Mexico, at lifting the economy of the least developed of the three NAFTA members to more balanced, and therefore beneficial status within that framework.
And it is within that context, even as Mr Trump has reiterated his election promise of building a wall between the two countries, a former Foreign Minister and distinguished foreign policy academic of Mexico, Jorge Castañeda, with long experience in the North American academic world, has sought to emphasise that Trump’s action would represent “a disaster for the United States, for the world, and for Mexico”.
It must be the case that other Latin American governments will be contemplating the implications of what must be considered, in the rest of the hemisphere, as a harsh policy initiative against the most closely economically integrated, and in some measure diplomatically aligned with the United States, entity of the major states of Latin America. And there must be some developing concern that American policy, under the new president, can be capable of reversals and surprises unaccustomed in their frameworks of diplomatic relations, as instanced by the remark of a former Argentine Foreign Minister that “We can’t think of inserting ourselves in the world without having US ties”.
Diplomats in the hemisphere will, of course, be aware that Trump has taken a course not unknown in the United States and in other hemispheric countries themselves, of seeking to minimise the insecurities of citizens by finding issues, originating outside, which can be described as hostile to the United States and its interests. And it is now well recognized in the US itself, that Trump’s visit to Mexico in the course of the campaign, was designed not to indicate to that country that he was desirous of maintaining harmonious relations, but to exacerbate, and therefore electorally capitalize on, quickly consolidating hostilities to the Mexican immigrant presence within the US electorate itself.
From that perspective, in spite of his post-election insistence that he will carry out his promise of extensive deportations and construction of a wall to inhibit further immigration, experience tells us that he is going to have to have extensive discussions with the Government of Mexico before initiating any such measures
But from a Caribbean perspective, governments of this area must be concerned about the extent to which Trump will want to take the measures only towards Mexico, or whether his policy, if initiated, in order to seem to be less prejudicial to a specific country, will be extended to other countries in the hemisphere, including our zone.
Our diplomats in the United States will have to be keeping a keen eye on the manner in which policy initiatives and any necessary legislation to that end are framed in that direction, and they must be prepared to signal early, any such initiatives that suggest a possible application with respect to the region.
