Mexico Agreed to Take Border Actions Months Before Trump Announced Tariff Deal

[TheCount]

WASHINGTON — The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations.

Friday’s joint declaration says Mexico agreed to the “deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.” But the Mexican government had already pledged to do that in March during secret talks in Miami between Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of homeland security, and Olga Sanchez, the Mexican secretary of the interior, the officials said.

The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s deal was an expansion of a program to allow asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal cases proceed. But that arrangement was first reached in December in a pair of painstakingly negotiated diplomatic notes that the two countries exchanged. Ms. Nielsen announced the Migrant Protection Protocols during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee five days before Christmas.

And over the past week, negotiators failed to persuade Mexico to accept a “safe third country” treaty that would have given the United States the legal ability to reject asylum seekers if they had not sought refuge in Mexico first.

Mr. Trump hailed the agreement anyway on Saturday, writing on Twitter (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137355469134151681): “Everyone very excited about the new deal with Mexico!” He thanked (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137363899420950530) the president of Mexico for “working so long and hard” on a plan to reduce the surge of migration into the United States.

It was unclear whether Mr. Trump believed that the agreement truly represented new and broader concessions, or whether the president understood the limits of the deal but accepted it as a face-saving way to escape from the political and economic consequences of imposing tariffs (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/economy/mexico-tariffs-state-by-state.html?module=inline) on Mexico.

Having threatened Mexico with an escalating series of tariffs — starting at 5 percent and growing to 25 percent — the president faced enormous criticism from global leaders, business executives, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and members of his own staff that he risked disrupting a critical marketplace.

After nine days of uncertainty, Mr. Trump backed down and accepted Mexico’s promises.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html

[Swordsmyth]

I see the NYT is ignoring the crackdown on human traffickers that Mexico agreed to and has already begun as a show of good faith.

Has the State Department even released the deal yet or is the NYT just guessing about it?

[Zippyjuan]

Make a big fuss, do nothing and then declare victory.

[Swordsmyth]

Mexican Enforcement Surge
Mexico will take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border. Mexico is also taking decisive action to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations as well as their illicit financial and transportation networks. Additionally, the United States and Mexico commit to strengthen bilateral cooperation, including information sharing and coordinated actions to better protect and secure our common border.
Migrant Protection Protocols
The United States will immediately expand the implementation of the existing Migrant Protection Protocols across its entire Southern Border. This means that those crossing the U.S. Southern Border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico where they may await the adjudication of their asylum claims.
In response, Mexico will authorize the entrance of all of those individuals for humanitarian reasons, in compliance with its international obligations, while they await the adjudication of their asylum claims. Mexico will also offer jobs, healthcare and education according to its principles.
The United States commits to work to accelerate the adjudication of asylum claims and to conclude removal proceedings as expeditiously as possible.
Further Actions
Both parties also agree that, in the event the measures adopted do not have the expected results, they will take further actions. Therefore, the United States and Mexico will continue their discussions on the terms of additional understandings to address irregular migrant flows and asylum issues, to be completed and announced within 90 days, if necessary.

[phill4paul]

New York Times. Lol.

[spudea]

Private discussions of vague commitments by lesser government officials vs. a publicly signed enforceable agreement between the president of Mexico and the president of the USA, and all of Mexico now knows if they fall short of the commitment there will be consequences. HUR DURR I"M THE NEW YARK TIMS ITS THE SAME LUL TRUMP IS STOOPID

[spudea]

1137697505683091461
1137697507218264064

[Zippyjuan]

When the agreement was reached (Trump was frustrated that things were not being enacted quick enough- Mexico government still needs to approve it) :

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/03/26/secretary-nielsen-meets-mexican-officials-border-emergency-travels-honduras-meet


Secretary Nielsen Meets with Mexican Officials on Border Emergency, Travels to Honduras to Meet with Northern Triangle Governments to Address Crisis at Source


Release Date: March 26, 2019

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen met with senior officials from the Government of Mexico Tuesday, March 26 to discuss border security and immigration, and she will travel to Honduras to participate in multilateral meetings with regional partners to discuss the common cause America shares with the countries of Central America in confronting migration flows and promoting security and prosperity. There she plans to sign a first-of-its-kind regional accord meant to address the migration crisis.

The Secretary traveled to Miami, Florida on Tuesday for a bilateral meeting with Mexican Secretary of the Interior Olga Sanchez Cordero and senior Mexican government officials. They discussed ways the U.S. and Mexico can work together to address irregular migration and the record levels of illegal entries at the U.S. Southern Border, where last month DHS apprehended more than 75,000 individuals—a 12-year high. They also discussed combating human trafficking and smuggling, security cooperation, and U.S. plans to bolster the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a DHS initiative to return migrants to Mexico and provide humanitarian protections while they await U.S. immigration processing.

On Wednesday, March 27 the Secretary will be in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to participate in a multilateral meeting at the Ministry of Security with Northern Triangle officials representing the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The meeting will mark the continuation of a multi-year diplomatic process aimed at stemming the flood of irregular migration at the source, and ultimately help confront the ongoing humanitarian and security emergency at the U.S. Southern Border. The meetings will be led by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.

The Secretary and Northern Triangle security ministers have been working toward the development of a first-of-its-kind Memorandum of Cooperation—or “regional compact”— between the U.S. and the countries of the Northern Triangle. Reflecting improved cooperation between the countries, the accord focuses on stemming the migration crisis at its source, including preventing the formation of new migrant caravans that set out to reach the United States.

A final compact would cover four distinct areas of collaboration:

Combating Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling
Countering Organized Crime and Gangs
Expanding Information and Intelligence Sharing
Strengthening Border Security

Following Secretary Nielsen’s call for the formation of a “compact” last summer, in February she and Northern Triangle security ministers announced the signing of a joint statement declaring a commitment to reach a final deal to improve information sharing, law enforcement cooperation, and public messaging to address the ongoing crisis.

Earlier on Wednesday, Nielsen will participate in bilateral meetings with the Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and First Lady Ana García Carías at the Ministry of Security in Tegucigalpa.

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/us-to-sign-central-american-pact-to-address-migration-crisis.html


US expected to sign regional accord with Central American officials to address ‘migration crisis’

TUE, MAR 26 2019

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is scheduled to be in Honduras on Wednesday to sign “a first-of-its-kind regional accord” with leaders from the Northern Triangle of Central America.

According to DHS, the regional pact between the U.S. and government officials of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador is aimed at addressing what it called “the migration crisis.”

The agreement includes a focus on “preventing the formation of new migrant caravans that set out to reach the United States,” the agency said.



More at link.

[oyarde]

Sounds like a positive .

[spudea]

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/us-to-sign-central-american-pact-to-address-migration-crisis.html



More at link.

so mexico wasn't part of this one. another stellar post by the Zip

[Swordsmyth]

The acting secretary of Homeland Security on Sunday heralded Mexico’s decision to send thousands of its national guard troops to the Guatemalan border as a new development, disputing a report that said the concession that averted new tariffs had been agreed upon months ago.
“All of it is new,” Kevin McAleenan said on “Fox News Sunday.” (https://www.foxnews.com/category/shows/fox-news-sunday) “I mean, we’ve heard commitments before from Mexico to do more on their southern border. The last time they deployed down there, it’s about 4 or 500 officers. This is a more than tenfold commitment to increase their security in Chiapas. That’s where people are entering from Guatemala in southern Mexico.”


Fox News host Bret Baier pressed McAleenan after Trump called the newspaper the “enemy of the people” (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137697507218264064) whether the action was new.
“This is the first time we’ve heard anything like this kind of law enforcement being deployed in Mexico to address migrations, not just at the southern border but also in transportation routes to the northern border and coordinated patrols in key areas around our southwest border,” McAleenan said.
Baier noted that Nielsen testified to the House Judiciary Committee in December that there had been existing talks about Mexico deploying the national guard and asked whether this new commitment is different.
“It’s very different,” McAleenan said. “The president put a charge in this whole dialogue with Mexico with the tariff threat, brought them to the table, the foreign minister from Mexico arrived within hours. He arrived the next day with real proposals on the table.”
​Baier also brought up Trump’s suggesting in another tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137697506454835200) that ​there may be more announcements coming of agreements between the US and Mexico.
“Yeah, so the president tweeted out that this tariff has been suspended, that Secretary Mnuchin point it out that there’s a mechanism to make sure that they do what they promise to do, that there’s an actual result, that we see a vast reduction in those numbers,” McAleenan said.
“And as the state department announced, there are going to be further actions, further dialogue with Mexico on immigration, and how to manage this asylum flow in the region, which is a small percentage of the total flow.”

More at: https://nypost.com/2019/06/09/homeland-security-secretary-mexicos-guard-border-deployment-is-new/