Follow this authorEduardo Porter's opinions
FollowPresident Biden’s caution with his demanding counterpart south of the border has been, let’s say, uncharacteristic for the United States. Washington has said next to nothing about López Obrador’s campaign to dismantle the institutions underpinning Mexico’s young democracy or anything about the military’s encroachment on civilian life. Issues of direct national importance — the flow of fentanyl over the border, Mexico’s nationalist energy policy likely in breach of agreements with the United States — have elicited little more than a polite suggestion from Washington to reconsider.
The reason, of course, is immigration: AMLO finds himself in control of the most powerful political narrative in Washington, one that could determine the presidential election in November.
Advertisement
As presidential elections approach in both Mexico (June) and the United States (November), some Mexican critics are voicing concerns that AMLO might be playing with the migration valve to warn Washington about the potential consequences of saying anything mean about his, say, questionable tactics to ensure a win for his handpicked successor, Claudia Sheinbaum.
It’s not unreasonable for Washington to fear AMLO might be willing to play with the migration valve to favor Donald Trump, for whom the Mexican president has expressed some inexplicable affinity. Few things would hurt Biden more than an October migration surprise.
“Mexico’s changes in migration policy have an inevitable political impact in the U.S.,” noted Tonatiuh Guillén López, who headed Mexico’s National Institute of Migration in the early years of López Obrador’s administration. “It would be innocent to think Mexico doesn’t know this.”
Advertisement
In 2022, Mexico returned, on average, more than 10,000 migrants per month to the countries of their origin. In 2023, the average dropped to 4,500, less than 7 percent of migrants encountered by the authorities. In December, Mexico returned only 378.
Whatever López Obrador is thinking, though, Biden’s vulnerability to Mexico’s migration policies is Washington’s own fault — a predictable consequence of outsourcing migration control to Mexico. It is hardly crazy that Mexico’s president would deploy what leverage he has to ensure some favorable political outcome. The United States has played that game for years. What is preposterous is that the U.S. political system (here’s looking at you, Speaker Mike Johnson) would expose the United States to this kind of manipulation.
Biden is to be commended for refraining from using the hardball tactics of his predecessor, who threatened Mexico with tariffs unless it kept Central American migrants south of the border. But Biden failed to do anything else, perhaps believing that goodwill would seal a deal on its own.
Advertisement
Cruel as it may seem, migrants make for powerful weapons. Think of the Mariel boatlift of 1980, when Fidel Castro opened the door for an exodus of disillusioned Cubans toward Miami, partly to get rid of them and partly to buy leverage with President Jimmy Carter.
President Nicolás Maduro has tried to extract political gain from millions of desperate Venezuelans fleeing oppression and destitution, many hoping to make a life in the United States. President Daniel........