Thursday was a fruitful day in bi-national relations as the Mexican Senate approved the appointment of Gerónimo Gutiérrez as Mexico’s new ambassador to the United States.
Gutiérrez will be the fourth – maybe fifth, I’m losing track – of President Peña Nieto’s ambassadors to Washington but what sets now-Ambassador Gutiérrez apart is the new times and new relations between the two nations.
Gutiérrez, a greenhorn in diplomacy, as is current Foreign Relations Secretary (SRE) Luis Videgaray, has a humongous task ahead and that is to appease that awesome beast Mexico has bestowed upon itself named Donald Trump.
What was clear from what we know – not much – of what U.S. Secretaries of State and Homeland Security Rex Tillerson and John Kelly told President Peña Nieto is that his administration – almost on the lame duck state – had better beware because The Donald is out to get it and if Peña Nieto doesn’t tighten up his breaches, Trump may just do that.
These are indeed alarming times for Mexico because this poor nation is being blamed for the woes of the mighty United States of America. In past articles this writer has pointed out the sore points that former real estate contractor and Miss Universe producer Donald Trump had with individual businessmen in Mexico, but trying to getting even by sending an entire nation into bankruptcy is much too hateful.
Once again on Thursday The Donald complained that the poor United States has a $70 billion trade deficit with Mexico which should be enough reason to cast this otherwise poor nation into the garbage can. Notice that the amount of the deficit went up from $60 to $70 billion in another post-truth posted by The Intimidator.
In intimate circles –particularly one with top Mexican journalists last Monday –President Enrique Peña Nieto literally confessed that he does not know how to deal with President Trump and that ominous times are in store for Mexico as a whole.
But then, what is Peña Nieto complaining about if this whole mess is his own doing? At a government level, the entire SRE is in total disarray because he tinkled with it for alleged political gain, which has turned now into losses.
Now comes in Gerónimo Gutiérrez, in my eyes just another carpetbagger, who will have to deal with Washington at a time when true diplomats are being cast aside in moves typical to the internal bickering that goes on within Mexican politicking.
But for a change, the President of Mexico is not correctly reading the mischievous plan being wrought in Washington by presidential advisor Steve Bannon and his puppet Donald Trump.
Perhaps Peña Nieto is too busy saving the nation – and his name in Mexican history – in order not to see what’s cooking up North. Indeed doomsday is in the loom for Mexico, but Peña Nieto can’t see it.
Worse still, for all their savvy, the whole bunch of the Interior Secretariat (Segob) political interpreters have not yet realized that the entire Trump Cabinet is not merely a governing body but the gathering of all financial forces in the United States who, by the way, don’t give a hoot about “making America great again” but are there to sack not just the nation, but the world.
Indeed President Peña is ill-adviced and worse still is that he has appointed Luis Videgaray as his chancellor. Videgaray is a nice man but last week he went to Canada and told Canadian officials that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was not a trade but a cultural deal.
Gimme a break!!! Worst if it comes from the nation’s top SRE official. What have Mexicans done to deserve both The Trump and The Videgaray?
Needless to say that the team of “diplomats” Peña Nieto has gathered to confront Awesome Trump (this guy must have learned the “shock and awe” military tactic from the Bushes) is indeed at a par with a bunch of congressmen and senators who are now wailing to save our peers in the United States, who are for the most part people who left Mexico for lack of opportunities.
Also President Peña should look back at 20th century history and see how Adolph Hitler picked a patsy to start his armed conquest of the world to set up a regime that would last a thousand years.
The lesson of the past story is that if Hitler had Poland as patsy, Trump has Mexico to bestow his invented woes of the United States upon.
Thursday was indeed a fruitful day not because it showed Mexicans that its government is running scared but because the shape of things to come is upon us.
