MEXICO CITY — The president of Mexico called donald trump “a friend” on Friday and said he would write to the former US president to warn him not to commit to closing the border or blaming immigrants for bringing drugs into the United States.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called Trump, president from 2017 to 2021 and again the Republican candidate for this fall’s presidential election, “a man of intelligence and vision,” despite Trump’s repeated calls to close the border between the two countries.
Mexicans were offended in 2015 when then-candidate Trump stated that, in many cases, immigrants come to the United States illegally. included “criminals, drug dealers, rapists.”
And Mexico was shocked in 2019 when Trump as president threatened to close the border “for a long time” unless Mexican authorities prevented the migrants from crossing. López Obrador said that the economies of the two countries were so intertwined that They couldn’t stand a closure even for a month..
López Obrador said that in a letter he plans to send next week, “I am going to show you that migrants do not bring drugs to the United States,” adding that “closing the border will not solve anything, and in any case, it cannot be done.” ”.
“They wouldn’t last a month with the border closed,” he said, referring to American automakers that depend on a constant, uninterrupted supply of parts and finished products for their plants on both sides of the border.
López Obrador also addressed growing unrest in the United States over the mass transfer of American auto companies to lower-wage plants in Mexico.
López Obrador stated that moving automobile production back to the United States “would mean that, on average, each car sold would cost American citizens between $15,000 and $20,000 more.”
Despite frequent friction and Trump’s belligerent statements, the two leaders had an apparently friendly relationship between 2018 and 2020, and López Obrador agreed to use the Mexican National Guard to make it difficult for migrants from third countries to cross Mexico to the border with USA. He has also done it for the current US administration.
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