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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles as he listens to a speaker during a campaign event today in Staten Island, N.Y.
MEXICO CITY » Mexican Finance Minister Luis Videgaray says Donald Trump’s proposal to force the country to pay for a wall along the U.S. border, or face economic consequences if it doesn’t, is a kind of diplomatic harassment that’s doomed to fail.
“Mexico will not pay for that wall, not only because it doesn’t make any sense for either Mexico or the U.S. to enter into that type of threat rhetoric, but it’s also a matter of dignity,” Videgaray said in Washington. “There’s no way in which Mexico can be bullied into doing such a thing.”
The Republican presidential candidate said in a memo this month that as president, he would block payments that Mexican workers in the U.S. send to their home country, known as remittances, if Mexico’s government refuses to pay for a wall he wants to build along the roughly 2,000-mile border. Trump has said the wall would subdue illegal immigration and cost $8 billion to $10 billion. Officials in Mexico have repeatedly said they have no intention of paying for it.
Mexico has taken action to counteract Trump’s anti-immigrant message, including an effort to covert the country’s many permanent residents in the U.S. into citizens, a status that would enable them to vote — presumably against Trump. Officially, Mexico says it respects U.S. sovereignty and has no strategy to influence the result of the presidential race. Yet diplomats are mobilizing to assist immigrants in gaining U.S. citizenship, hosting free workshops on naturalization.
About 12 million Mexicans live in the U.S. and almost half lack legal status, according to a study released in November by the Pew Research Center. Still, more Mexicans left the U.S. than arrived from 2009 to 2014, according to the nonpartisan research group. Trump, front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination, began off his candidacy with invective directed at Mexican immigrants and a promise to build the border wall.
“The proposal to make Mexico pay for a wall and trying to achieve that through a set of threats is a proposal that has already failed,” said Videgaray, who was attending the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Mexico received $24.8 billion in remittances last year, the highest level since 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2012, 98 percent of remittances to the Latin American nation’s $1.29 trillion economy came from the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.
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©2016 Bloomberg News
Does Mexico understand that the popular vote is meaningless. The Elector College chooses the President.
This buffoon is exposing himself as suffering from an acute case of anosognosia — he’s too stupid to know how stupid he is. For all of his bragging that “I have the best people,” he demonstrates daily that the circle of sycophants he surrounds himself with includes no one who knows what they’re doing. His campaign is an organizational disaster. His advisors and his children didn’t bother to learn how voting or amassing delegates works. The data manager for his campaign, a critical job, is someone whose prior employment experience is being an intern at a large company (Colgate Palmolive, I believe). One of the 5 foreign policy advisors he named is a recent college graduate whose prior foreign policy experience is being selected for a model United Nations — his résumé doesn’t say that he participated, just that he was selected. Trump doesn’t read books, and he is ignorant of the basics of foreign relations. Ending NATO and shredding the nuclear nonproliferation treaty are both ideas that are so profoundly dangerous and display an astonishing stupidity that his nonsense about making Mexico pay for a wall is inconsequential by comparison. It will never happen. Finally, for Trump to give an anti-immigrant speech in Patchhoque, Long Island, less than 200 yards from the site of the murder of a Hispanic man by racist high school students is an act of pure racism that is probably unequaled in American politics since 1980 when, in the first electoral cycle in 12 years in which George Wallace wasn’t running for President, Ronald Reagan chose to open his campaign for President in Neshoba County Mississippi where 3 civil rights workers (Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney) were slaughtered. Reagan’s biggest applause line at that rally was “I support state’s rights!” and to this day “state’s rights” is a Republican dog whistle to the racist base of the party.
“It will never happen. ”
From what Trump has said, my guess is that he would do it indirectly with something like a services tax on imports.
I understand your frustration, but part of Trump’s appeal seems to be that of finding solutions to problems, outside of the usual generalizations and platitudes that dominate the utterances of politicians and paralyze their ability to solve anything.
While they were all arguing about “boots on the ground” three years ago, he said cut off the ISIS money supply: the oil. Simple, direct and effective.
When Trump suggested leaving Bashar Assad in power in Syria and letting Russia (help) establish law and order, Kerry etc were wringing their hands over “letting Russia have more influence in the middle east”. Well, with Russia’s help Palmyra was taken back from ISIS.
Nice touch with using “anosognosia” (Impaired awareness of illness), but I think its elevating effect was cancelled when you lowered the level of the conversation in the same sentence by calling Trump a buffoon.
Good points.Kudos
Good observation. But lookit: Trump is an entertainment figure as is Cruz. Neither one are remotely qualified to be president. We may not like Hillary that much but she is rational. smart and qualified to be president. I will vote for her just to protect myself and my mom.
“rational”(?) The inevitable actualization of HILLBILLARY’S commitment to launch WWIII–is not going to “protect” anyone. At the very least–consider “Sanders”.
I’m sorry for your belief that Hily will protect you better than Trump or Cruz, but I find it ironic that when her personal friend Ambassador Stevens and three other brave Americans asked her for protection, she ignored their request when she was the their boss, the Secretary of State. Then when they were under attack by terrorists, someone, it could have been her personally, told the American forces to stand down. Instead, she left her friend and his brave American defenders to be killed in the worst possible manner.
Instead of Hil y, I meant Hilliary. Sorry about that.
On November 21, 2014, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) released the findings of its investigation into the Benghazi attacks, which found “no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support.” The report further explained that there was no “stand down order from CIA headquarters or from Tripoli Station,” and citing the House Armed Services Committee report, found that “the CIA received all military support that was available.” From the HPSCI report:
“The evidence from eyewitness testimony, ISR video footage, closed-circuit television recordings, and other sources provides no support for the allegation that there was any stand-down order. Rather, there were mere tactical disagreements about the speed with which the team should depart prior to securing additional security assets.
The 21-minute period between the time the Annex personnel first learned of the attack and when they departed reflects the time the Team needed to put on gear and the time during which the Chief of base in Benghazi tried to secure local militias to assist in the mission. Annex leadership also considered the impact of the departure of the security officers on the security of the Annex. The Annex has minimal security forces available for the 93 minutes that the team was gone, and there was neither a requirement not an expectation for the CIA security personnel to defend the State Department’s facility in Benghazi. Nonetheless, some Annex team members wanted urgently to depart the Annex for the TMF to save their State Department colleagues. The Chief of Base in Benghazi, however, ordered the team to wait so that the seniors on the ground could ascertain the situation at the TMF and whether they could secure heavy weaponry support from local militias.
Based on all of the available evidence, the Committee concludes that the Annex team left in a timely and appropriate manner. None of the officials who testified believed that the 21-minute delay was due to a stand down order from CIA headquarters or from Tripoli Station. [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,”
BS, the corrupt Democrat politicians on the committee would like to white wash the report to imply that no “stand down” order was given because it looks bad for their presumptive nominee for president, Hilliary, and it makes the current president, the incompetent President Obama look very bad. But you have to ask the men on the ground who were there and were very sure of what was told them. “The words were used,” Paronto said. “I don’t know what to tell you; I don’t know how they can continuously call us liars, which is what they’re doing, in effect.” Kris Paronto was one of the contractors that actually went in to attempt to save the Ambassador and his brave guards. I believe Paronto over any sketchy politicians any day.
Qualified? Just ask the families of those who were killed in Benghazi about how much “protection” Hillary afforded their loved ones. And yeah Hillary is so smart she conducted State Dept. business on her own private server.
BS let’s not forget the massive drugs entering our countries!!The Drug Cartels don’t care about us !!The only thing their concerned is? It’s about making MONEY!!Tons of MONEY! & Yet! those very Drugs are Killing our Children,wrecking many family lives every day.
Let’s not forget…
Convicted felons harboring in Sanctuary Cities?? Are committing murders!! Heard of “Kates Law”??(Congress dropped the Ball on that one!) Many of these “Felons are convicted, deported then they return to the same Sanctuary Cities,and continue on their merry way.By committing more crimes!! Why is that ?? Because they know very well,they will be protected by these “Sanctuary Cities”!! There are many reasons why it’s important to secure our borders…these are but a few.
Congress had many chances to fix the Border! They did not!
If we just upheld the law and let the Border Patrol officers do their work!! We wouldn’t be here discussing this issue too. And why those very Border patrol officers are endorsing The Donald!They understand what Mr. Trump is saying!
And NO! Please don’t give this Fake Baloney legislation,known as The “Comprehensive” Immigration reform.Politicians just LOVE this word! Ha!ha!ha! This is not the answer!! I don’t believe in “Free Passes”!! There are Rules and Laws!! Fill out your paper work,then go to the Back of the Line like everybody else!! Deep down this strategy or “Reform” was to target those “Undocumented”, (I prefer Illegals) Who will Most definitely VOTE for the democratic party!! And NATO?? Don’t get me started. If they(NATO) just do their job,instead of letting the US do all the heavy lifting!!Again! we wouldn’t be here!! This_ is_ NOT_ Right! We’re supposed to be a coalition of Nations!
I understand your dislike for Donald Trump. Is it his Money or his HUGE success ?? Is it his Braggadocious?He tells like it is?? He calls our Politicians “Stupid and Incompetent”….(he’s right!) Is it His Confident?? Or is it, that he recognizes the real threat to our borders.The threat no one wanted to talk about before. Only when Donald Trump brought up the issue .OR ????Maybe you dislike The Donald because he’s just trying to protect our lives.??
After all the President of the U.S; duties,in a a swored oath ,that they will protect it’s citizens from Foreign and Domestic threats!!See how easy.
Oh? BTW Lose the Racist thing it doesn’t apply to The Donald!!Just another Politicall Correctness rant !!This was taken out of context and fabricated to discredit Donald J Trump…Leftist Liberal Tactic as usual.IMUA
“Awaiting Moderation”?? I love you guys too!No Freedom of Speech here?? I love it!! Let me see ,i’ll just print it for myself Haaaaaaa,ha!ha!
Moderation is pretty fair now.
Here’s a great example of how Trump does NOT surround himself with all, as he frequently claims, with “all of the best people”: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trump-lewandowski-florida-republicans-222069
Mexico has nothing to worry about, Trump will never be elected President.
Exactly…I don’t understand why so many people are talking as if he were already president…
..instead we are being bullied in allowing more illegal immigrants from Mexico.
“Mexican Immigration to U.S. Reverses – More Mexicans are leaving the U.S. to return home than arriving, ending the largest wave of immigration in modern American history” – WSJ Nov. 19, 2015
You were saying?
No need to build the wall. Just change our immigration policy to mirror Mexico’s and they won’t be coming here because the penalty will be extremely unforgiving.
Why aren’t the Left realizing your point…shallow reasoning perhaps.
If we would round up illegals, load them on trailers and dump with Caterpillar loaders them over a wall on the border it would solve the problem.
“Mexico has taken action to counteract Trump’s anti-immigrant message”
This kind of lying does not help promote solutions to problems.
Trump is opposed to illegal immigration.
Elevating this reasonable and lawful position to the dishonest and inaccurate generalization that he is “anti-immigrant” stops all meaningful discussion.
“Trump is opposed to illegal immigration.”
versus Obama’s OPEN DOOR POLICY.
I take TRUMP’s position.
Please look at the facts. Look at how many illegal immigrants have been deported in the last 8 years. While I agree that we have an immigration problem in this country the rhetoric that is being used to combat and solve this problem is fear based and filled with threats. My problem Trump is that he is catering to people’s fear using double talk and baseless statements. Those who do not research his claims and statements blindly accept them as facts. Trump only has one agenda..the Trump brand. People trust Trump because of his claims that he is a self made billionaire when in fact his wealth comes from inheritance, fraud and circumventing the laws through countless bankruptcies.
You do realize you’re talking to Keonigohan right? Who has argued that American service member should rot in Iraqi jails on false charges?
You won’t get anything reasonable out of him.
Any immigration is junk. Every additional immigrant means less nature, more traffic, more country being paved over.
We are all immigrants. This nation was founded by immigrants and is great because of immigrants. The more you post the more you reveal your ignorance of reality.
Every new American citizen born means less nature, more traffic, more country being paved over.
Trump understands that whatever he says probably are empty promises anyway and anything he says will be gobbled up by his supporters as fact. He should create his own religion already with all the sheep he has still supporting him no matter what outrageous thing he says every day.
We should put up a wall to keep homeless transients from coming to Hawaii. But then again that would be illegal.
Build a wall around Donald or daffy.
and lock up hiLIARy behind the wall.
Belong to the greatest generation, served 2 hitches in the US Army, lived in a very beautiful country, enjoyed a good life, prepaid for my cremation without any services, so who gives a rat’s a-s how the election result, it your problems!
The wall just got 20 feet higher!
Baaahahaha.
When Trump says that the Republican party is in for a “rough” July and speaking about the convention says, “I hope it doesn’t involve violence,” he is making a crude threat, like the mafia shakedown artists he is very familiar with as a NYC developer. A lower Manhattan bar owner I knew was visited regularly by a guy who said, “those are nice big plate glass windows you’ve got; I hope no one breaks them.” Handing over a small roll of 100 dollar bills bought “glass insurance.” Trump’s threats are just as unsubtle as the mafia goon’s threats to the bar owner. With its two leading candidates, the Republican party is resurrecting the spirits of two of this country’s worst politicians. Cruz embodies the spirit of Joe McCarthy just as Trump is inhabited by the spirit of George Wallace.
Still talking about that wall?