Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”) who heads up an odd coalition of Leftist parties, is the frontrunner in Mexico’s July 1 Presidential Election. This hysteria about separated children got AMLO going. In a recent speech, he had some suggestions for President Pena:

I wish to request President Pena Nieto to act with urgency and I propose…first, an energetic diplomatic protest note against the government that Donald Trump heads; second, that [Pena Nieto] request the urgent intervention of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights… to stop this domineering, racist and inhumane attitude of deporting children, putting them in cages and separating them from their parents. Urge AMLO a Peña Nieto detener tratos racistas de Trump, [“AMLO urges Pena Nieto to stop the racist treatments of Trump”]. By Isabel Gonzalez, Excelsior, June 19, 2018

AMLO also called on the president to “send immediately a team of professionals to the border: lawyers, psychologists, and social workers to help and support the children and their families”.

Then there was this great promise:

Soon and very soon, upon the triumph of our movement, we are going to defend the migrants of Mexico, of Central America, of all the continente americano [North and South America] and all the migrants of the world (!) who from necessity have to leave their pueblos (towns, villages, peoples, nations) and go to seek a life in the United States. It is a human right that we are going to defend for all Mexicans and for the migrants. Pide AMLO a Peña que actúe con urgencia y de inmediato sobre el tema de los niños mexicanos deportados de EU [“AMLO Asks Pena to Act with Urgency and Immediately In Response to the Mexican Children Deported from the United States”] AMLO website, June 19, 2018. (Emphasis added. The AMLO website title doesn’t really make sense—they haven’t been deported—but that’s not our fault.)

In this declaration, AMLO is declaring that everybody in the world who wants to go to the U.S. has the right to, and he is going to defend that.

If you think about it, it’s really no different from many Open Borders fanatics in our own country.

Unusually for the American Main Stream Media, this quote made its way into English and was widely interpreted as AMLO saying he was going to invade the United States by sending a mass movement of migrants in the U.S. For example: MEXICO’S NEXT PRESIDENT Calls for An Invasion Of The US By Mexican Citizens: “must leave their towns and find a life in the United States”[100PercentFedUp.com, June 22, 2018.]

PunditFact, which boasts about its “partnership with Facebook” i.e. has been recruited as a censor, did damage control on the claim: No, Mexico’s presidential candidate didn't call for mass migration to the United States. [by Manuela Tobias, PunditFact, June 25, 2018 ]

Whoa now. PunditFact is right that AMLO was not calling for an invasion per se. But the fact that he thinks that anybody in the world has the right to enter the U.S. at will doesn’t recognize our sovereignty. And it could result in an invasion.

More important: It’s not just AMLO who thinks like this. All prominent Mexican politicians think Mexicans ought to be able to go to the U.S. regardless of what we want. AMLO just spells it out clearly and invites the whole world!

PunditFact misses the forest for the trees, sanctimoniously saying bloggers have cited AMLO’s words to “stoke fears”. Oh, so what are all these people likening U.S. immigration officials to Nazis doing then?

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Mexican President Candidates AMLO and El Bronco Talk Trump

But despite what you’d think from the U.S. MSM’s focus on AMLO, the biggest Trump-basher by far is “right-wing” candidate Ricardo Anaya (right) who is in second place in the polls.

That said, front-runner AMLO and the last-place candidate, independent contender Jaime Heliodoro Rodriguez Calderon, or Bronco (below left) had some interesting things to say about our man in the Oval Office.

AMLO doesn’t even bash Trump that much, agreeing with the gringo president twice in the second debate, held May 20.

But recently, AMLO explained how he’ll talk Trump into joining—and paying for— a vast continental aid program that, he claimed, would keep Mexicans and Central Americans at home.

From the candidate’s website:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that, upon becoming President of Mexico, his approach would be to make Donald Trump see reason, the need for development cooperation among the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Central American countries.... [H]e will propose to Trump cooperation accord to promote productive activities, so that there will be jobs and he said that if in Central America and in Mexico, if there are jobs and well-being, the people will not emigrate. [ Adelanta AMLO Que Planteará A Trump Un Acuerdo De Cooperación Entre EU, Canadá, México Y Centroamérica (AMLO Proposes That He Will Suggest To Trump a Cooperation Accord Among The U.S., Canada, Mexico and Central America), June 10, 2018].

How many times have we heard this? Many people who do have jobs emigrate because they can make more money in the U.S. doing whatever job they were doing at home. I have my doubts, and so should you.

AMLO says this is going to happen “whether Trump accepts it or not,” and that a “Mexican can work and be happy where he is born, where his family, customs and cultures are. Whoever wants to go, goes for pleasure and not for necessity.”

Perhaps that’s true—at least theoretically. But as long as the border is open, Latin Americans will cross it.

“We want a similar accord [to the Alliance for Progress, a 1960s aid program], an accord that sustains cooperation for development that includes the migratory problem, the defense of human rights, that salaries are improved in Central America and Mexico and especially that there are development projects in Central American and Mexico to keep the population in their places of origin. That is the goal,” he said.

Yeah, and Uncle Sucker pays the bill.

Bronco, the long-shot independent, said something more sensible that hit the nail on the head.

President Trump is President of the United States. He is protecting the Americans. That is what the President of Mexico should do. The President of Mexico should defend the Mexicans. Each country has to begin to protect its producers, its industries and its commerce. [Trump Protege A Su País Y México Debe Hacer Lo Mismo: ‘El Bronco’ (Trump Protects His Country And Mexico Should Do The Same: El Bronco), by Jesús Bustamante, Excelsior, May 31, 2018].

Well-said. Bronco gets it.

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Even Trump Said Mexico Has Smart Leaders. They Are Targeting Republican States With Retaliatory Tariffs To Meddle In Our Election

Here at VDARE.COM, trade is not our primary issue. But we couldn’t help notice Mexico’s recently-announced tariffs on U.S. exports to retaliate for Gringo Trump’s levies on Mexican steel and aluminum. [ Mexico Imposes Tariffs On $3 billion Worth Of US Exports , by Chris Isidore, CNN.com, June 6, 2018]

But the Mexicans aren’t imposing the levy on just any American exports. Rather, they’re aiming at products from Republican states. Hmmm. Might that mean Mexican policy-makers actually pay attention to U.S. political trends? The Donald Himself said Mexico has smart leaders!

And notice that the Democrats, the MSM and its Leftist auxiliaries aren’t complaining the way they have about Russian interference in our affairs, apropos of the ongoing witch hunt in Washington.

Trade and immigration are two separate issues. But Mexico’s policy chieftains pay close attention to the United States and its demographics, and have no qualms about using them to advance the interests of the Mexican government.

Consider this from Expansión, a Mexican news magazine owned by Time Inc., and now a joint venture with CNN:

The tariffs that Mexico is imposing on the United States are a political attack to get the Donald Trump administration to withdraw the tariffs imposed on Mexican steel and aluminum. [ Los Aranceles De México A EU Dolerán A Estados Republicanos (Mexican Tariffs on the U.S. Will Hurt Republican States), by Dainzú Patiño, June 4, 2018.]

Mexico buys many U.S. products. Here is the list and the rest of the admission of a retaliatory strike.

This past Thursday [May 31] the Mexican government announced it would impose tariffs on flat steel products, lamps, pork, sausages and prepared foods, apples, grapes, blueberries, and various types of cheese from the United States. These products are not exactly the most common products sold by the U.S. to Mexico. Instead, they were strategically selected by the Secretary of the Economy. According to Alejandro Arzate Mejia, member of the Tax Commission of the Association of Public Accountants of Mexico, the states and counties where most of these goods are produced support the Republican party and Trump’s administration. “Mexico’s action is not to protect Mexican producers as is Trump’s goal with the [Mexican] steel. It’s a political point,” Arzate said.

Did you get that? Reread it. Let it sink in. Mexico’s move is political.

The goal? Boost the price of these products in Mexico to push consumers toward cheaper Mexicican or foreign products, thus “lowering the demand of these products, to decrease the sale of these products located in Republican territory.”

In an interview with Televisa, reported Expansión, Juan Pablo Castanon, president of the CCE (Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, the Business Coordinating Council, said that “It’s part of a strategy in which we have worked with the Secretary of the Economy.”

The goal, according to Arzate , is obvious:

With producers in the United States affected by the low sales, Mexico’s goal is that they begin to pressure their legislators and representatives in the Chamber of Commerce so that the Trump administration will remove the tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum.”

Manuel Padron-Castillo of the Baker-McKenzie global law firm, also noted something even more obvious in Expansión. Those GOP states might be important to The Donald’s hold on the White House:

Many of the products that Mexico, Canada and Europe have promised to impose retaliatory tariffs on, such as pork, textiles, tobacco and other goods, come from states that this year have competitive elections for Congress and that President Trump must win in 2020 to be re-elected.

Apparently, that gato wasn’t supposed to get out the bolsa. Mexico’s Excelsior reported that Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo neither denied nor confirmed the tariffs were supposed “to damage Republican states in the United States.” Yet the article pointed to the products exported from Trump-voting states [ México Asesta A EU Golpe De 3 Mil MDD; Oficializa Aranceles A Mercancías , by Lindsay H. Esquival, June 6, 2018].

And Reuters reported, the tariffs are taking their toll in targeted districts.

Mexican tariffs are roiling U.S. congressional campaigns in states where U.S. exporters could take a hit and President Donald Trump’s Republicans face tough races in November congressional elections. Mexico announced the levies this week in retaliation to Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on metal imports from Mexico and other countries. They fall on only about $3 billion in U.S. exports, but were crafted to have a “very specific” focus on vulnerable Republicans, said one senior Mexican official who asked not to be named. “We wanted to ensure that the issue is a top priority for key decision makers at the highest level,” said another Mexican official who requested anonymity. [ Republicans In Tight House Races Feel Heat From Mexican Tariffs , by Jason Lange and Anthony Esposito, June 6, 2018]

Again, Trump got it right: Mexico has smart leaders.

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American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.