Mexican prophets of doom and hope are playing their chips side to side as to the future of Mexico in the ugly face of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
After the first week of outright hysteria — not just the Democrats are crying, but they count with a great weeping ally in Mexicans — the after-hurricane waters are beginning level off with the one exception that with Trump they will never go back to normal, or so it seems in the minds of Mexicans.
Reports from Mexicans residents living legally in the United States are that a wave of open racism has broken out with dozens of plaintiffs reporting anywhere of getting shouts of “go home, beaner” to outright fist fights in bars where some people want to place — again — signs of “whites only” and “No Mexicans allowed.”
These of course are futile attempts at racial discrimination but the feeling is definitely there and the group of uneducated gringos Hillary Clinton referred to as the “deplorables” who seemingly want to take the Clinton defeat out against minorities.
This, of course, can be culturally read as an immediate after election backlash, though the prophets of doom are predicting a potential Nazi-like “Kristallnacht” reaction from radical groups such as the KKK and allies against all minorities in the United States who are not of Arian origin.
But back to Mexico, the fear is economic. For one there is the threat of massive deportation but this should not frighten anyone as Barack Obama has already earned for himself the nickname of “The Deportator” as in his eight years in power a sizeable amount that runs into the millions of Central Americans and Mexicans have been returned home.
So why fear Trump when the deportation policy has long been enforced?
But many of these potential deportees are working people doing menial jobs who religiously send money home to Mexico as often as in a weekly basis and their dollars are indeed greatly appreciated by poor families who can be seen in small communities such as those of the states of Guanajuato and Michoacán where their families stand in line every week with the receiving banks who trade their high priced dollars for Mexican pesitos, which are good enough for them (and me too).
Another line the hopemongers are claiming that as soon as Donald Trump got what he wanted, the presidency, he was forced by the GOP leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives to tone down on his rhetoric and change his threatening speech.
Now there will be no wall but parts of it, which went up since the George Bush days and were increased during Obama’s time. So that’s one insult less that will be part of Trumps intensive demagoguery campaign lines. About the only people he wants to kick out of the United States are drug dealers, gang members and those with a prison record. To tell you the truth, they are not wanted in Mexico either.
He will also not “do away” with Obamacare as he had promised though that has nothing to do with Mexico, it must be pointed out as one of the many lies Trump uttered.
Then there was the promise of doing away with the “poorly negotiated” North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Surely now the tone will change for a revamping of the trade chapters agreed upon in which Trump will surely try to get the lion’s share for the United States but Mexican negotiators at the Economy Secretariat are already licking their chops to fight back to preserve a level playing field and not submit to the threats of the man who claims to be the best businessman in the world.
So pundits foresee that the enemy that’s stalking Trump is China and that if at all the trade bolts against China will be tightened to make NAFTA a more protected zone against what many consider the predatory manners of international Chinese trade.
For instance, President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled the projected of the rapid train service between Mexico City and Querétaro that had been awarded to China in what was seen two years ago as a clear breach of NAFTA as that contract should have gone to a NAFTA member. The Chinese screamed foul but so had the United States and Canada, who wanted to compete in the bidding of this five billion dollar project.
And of course, Mexico’s Trump card continues to be the large oil and gas reserves along the northern border and the Gulf of Mexico.
In terms of drugs, as marijuana continues to be legalized by state governments — it is still illegal, federally speaking, it is also a fact that most of the chemical precursors used to make crystal have come from China, the Mexico way. In this case the United States has to keep the clout to continue to pressure the Mexican government to interdict these chemicals as well as the cheap heroin that’s being manufactured by drug cartels in the states of Guerrero and Sinaloa. Then, the United States needs Mexico to keep a surveillance eye on potential terrorists stemming out of radical religious groups and who’d love to do harm to the northern country.
Some pundits suggest even that under NAFTA, Mexican farm workers could travel north seasonally to the United States and Canada under programs similar to the World War II Bracero Program. The point being is that in one week the mood of fear has changed for one of hope as everyone expects that Donald Trump will not behave — as the Mexican saying has it — “like a wild goat in a crystal shop” in dealing not just with Mexico, but the rest of the world.
It seems a moment is coming when, like in the movie “Gladiator” in a scene where the gladiators are literally condemned to death and Maximus the gladiator tells the others as they are in the midst of the Coliseum’s arena:
“Whatever comes out of those gates, let’s stick together.”
