Trump: Inconsistencies and Resistances

The imposition of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China by the Donald Trump administration, as well as its slander about an imaginary alliance between Mexican drug trafficking organizations and the Mexican government, have revealed a disjointed and incoherent discourse that weakens the White House’s performance. It is worth reviewing some of the inconsistencies mentioned, as well as the reactions they have generated.

First of all, in a surprising turn, Trump himself suddenly abandoned the argument about the bilateral trade surplus in favor of Mexico and argued that the decision to tax Mexican exports to his country by 25 percent was a response to our country’s alleged inaction against synthetic drugs arriving in the United States. Such a change shows an unsustainable false argumentative fraud: the tariffs were not then intended to correct trade imbalances, but rather were a way of sanctioning the Mexican authorities for their alleged inaction against drug trafficking. But it is necessary to ask, then, why Canadian exports – against which Trump has not formulated equivalent lies – were also subjected to an identical measure, and why Chinese exports – whose country of origin represents in the Trumpian imagination a threat of highest order – were punished with less than half the rate.

Another of the logical fallacies in the White House’s statements is to present as proof of the alleged alliance between the Mexican government and the gangs dedicated to drug trafficking the involvement in that activity of Genaro García Luna, today imprisoned in the neighboring country and sentenced for the same; but this high-ranking official of the PAN administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón served as such between 2000 and 2012, a period in which he was widely honored and praised by the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama; that is, he left government positions 12 years ago and today he is not only a convict in the United States, but he also has pending accounts with the Mexican justice system. Trying to use García Luna to accuse the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is, therefore, manifestly absurd and inappropriate.

Furthermore, the supposed concern of the Trump presidency about the arrival of synthetic drugs in the United States contrasts with its absolute lack of interest in resolving from a public health perspective the epidemic of addictions that is certainly ravaging that country and that, as various analyses have shown, was not caused by the Mexican cartels, but by the unscrupulous mercantilism of pharmaceutical companies and American medical mafias that in previous years sold and prescribed all kinds of addictive substances in excess and without justification.

It is clear, therefore, that the attack by the American president is not based on the desire to correct trade imbalances or on a concern for the health of its citizens. However, such an offensive will have inevitable negative effects not only on the economies of the countries that suffer from it, but also on the economy of the superpower itself, several of whose sectors could be brought to collapse, not only by the expulsion of a labor force that is difficult to replace, but also by the sudden increase in the price of countless materials and products as a consequence of the import taxes. Given this perspective, it is understandable that numerous business and civil organizations, legislators and governors of the neighboring nation have raised their voices to demand that tariff measures be repealed, which, without a clear objective in sight, will damage production chains, cause bankruptcies and job losses and impact consumers with unjustifiable high prices.

In this way, diverse and potentially enormous resistances to the Trumpist offensive are beginning to take shape, both in Mexico and Canada and in the United States itself: from undocumented workers to authorities and business organizations in the three countries, including broad sectors of their societies, they are demonstrating in different ways against Trump’s aggressive irrationality. These counterpoints will have to be followed closely.

Original article by La Jornada, February 3, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.

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