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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Between US and Central America’s: Mexico’s bad location

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"Migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have to traverse it to get to the US border."

 

If the people of Mexico say the same prayer before they go to sleep each night, it must be that the location of their country be changed so that it ceases to be situated between the US and Central America. That is because the migrants from the countries of Central America’s Triangle—Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—have to traverse Mexico in order to reach the US border. There is no alternative route.

Mexico is not the only place in the world that is the victim of bad geography. Because of its location between Germany and Russia, Poland, throughout history, has been caught in the middle in those two countries’ wars. Belgium has repeatedly been dragged into war because of its being situated between France and the German states. And at the domestic level, the northern countries of England and the northern provinces of Spain have repeatedly been collateral damage in the struggles between the rulers in London and Madrid and the challenges to their thrones.

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The plight of Mexico is very much in the present, and it is causing much discomfort in Washington and Mexico City, dislocating the lives of thousands of Central American adults and children and tarnishing America’s moral standing in the world. Media images of tired, weather-beaten and hungry Central Americans being detained under undignified conditions, separated from their children, are creating the worst human-rights blackeye for the US since the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans at the start of World War II.

To punish Mexico for allowing the ‘caravans’ of ‘invading’ Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans to travel through its territory en route to the US border, the administration of Donald Trump threatened to impose an up-to-25-percent tariff on all Mexican exports to the US. Terrified at the thought of such a US action, the Mexican government grudgingly agreed to deploy more troops at its border with the Triangle countries and tighten the procedures for entry into Mexico. Apparently satisfied with the Mexican response, the Trump administration has withdrawn the threat. But the withdrawal is only temporary; the up-to-25-percent tariff could well be imposed eventually.

The migration-related measures that Mexico has been compelled to take will necessitate the spending of millions of pesos—money that could be used to finance its many pressing social and infrastructure needs.

What the Trump administration really wants to see happen is the replacement of the US-Mexican border with a Mexican-Central American border. What Washington really is faulting Mexico for is for allowing the US-Mexican border to become a US-Mexican-Central American border. It wants Mexico to prevent these Central Americans from getting to second base—the US border.

Mexico is understandably reluctant to do that because that would deal a heavy blow to Latin-American solidarity, Central Americans being the Mexicans’ Latino brothers. And even if it willingly wanted to do so, there would be no guarantee of Mexico’s success, its borders with Guatemala and Honduras being long and poorly policed.

Mexico, the festive land of the mariachi, is in a real bind. And the bind cannot be easily unsnarled because what is involved is geography.

That is why I say that before they go to sleep every night the people of Mexico very likely pray that their country was geographically was not located between the US and Central America.

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