In his inaugural address, Donald Trump vowed to put America first, with a commitment to bring back jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, and “harness the energies, industries, and technologies of tomorrow.” He resoundingly rejected the globalist status quo and excoriated the political elite for their excesses. Trump proclaimed, “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

After a dizzyingly energetic first week as president, in which he’s issued over a dozen executive actions, it’s safe to say Trump is making good on his promises.

Four of those actions have been executive orders. The first, signed on Inauguration Day, has to do with Obamacare. The most recent, signed on Friday, orders a temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. But it’s the middle two, signed by Trump on Wednesday, that I want to focus on.

The two Wednesday executive orders, like Trump’s other actions thus far, instruct the government to take steps that would fulfill pledges he made on the campaign trail. These in particular concern immigration and border security.

Trump has ordered that work on a border wall between the United States and Mexico be started immediately and made sanctuary cities ineligible for federal grant funds, among other actions.

Trump’s views on globalization, notably those on immigration and trade, are troubling, and will give us policies that fail to revitalize the economy or “Make America Great Again.”

Walling ourselves off from our southern neighbor is not the appropriate response to a stagnating economy and civil unrest. We should capitalize on improved technological capabilities and infrastructure in Mexico, as well as increasing urbanization rates.

Trump began his campaign with a promise to “build a great, great wall on our southern border” that Mexico would pay for. In fact, throughout the campaign, this promise was branded into an effective call-and-response tactic deployed at every rally, to very great effect.

He illustrated a grim portrait of the Mexican migrant and turned the U.S.’s relationship with a key trade partner on its head. His engagements with Mexican officials, such as former president Vincente Fox Quesada (2000–2006), and with Mexican members of the media, such as Univision’s Jorge Ramos, have been adversarial, contributing to an atmosphere of uncertainty between the two nations moving forward.

Just yesterday, in light of Trump’s decision to follow-through on his wall proposal, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a meeting with him that had been scheduled for next week.

Trump’s portrayal of Mexicans as the enemy is built on the legacy of militarizing the southern border and initiatives such as “Operation Wetback” (1954) and “Operation Hold the Line” (1993) which, as Miguel Antonio Levario explains, were meant to “guard against what some people along the border called an ‘immigrant invasion.’”

Judging by these historical precedents, and current rhetoric, Trump’s wall is meant to protect us from an enemy.

If Trump’s wall is built, we are not only walling out Central and Southern Americans, but are walling ourselves in, and isolationism has consequences. The wall is lousy foreign policy, and his anti-globalist sentiment will also result in poor economic policy.

Wilbur Ross, Trump’s nominee to be commerce secretary stated in his confirmation hearing, “NAFTA is logically the first thing for us to deal with,” and that it would be a “very, very early topic in the administration.” There are certainly opportunities to improve the trade agreement, but it is not clear that Trump has the competence, resources, or willingness to negotiate a deal that both Mexico and Canada would agree to. Additionally, the signals sent by Trump on the U.S.’s relationship with Mexico have resulted in “a growing number of Mexican officials and businesspeople asking what price is worth paying to stay in [NAFTA].”

Regardless of the politics of the situation, the U.S. and Mexican economies are deeply intertwined. After 15 years of NAFTA, “at least 80 percent of Mexico’s trade is with the U.S., and Mexico is the second largest destination for U.S. goods.” Forbes highlights, “In 2011, the most recent year for which this data is available, Mexican industries consumed $140 billion in U.S. intermediate goods, and U.S. industries consumed $111 billion dollars’ worth of Mexican inputs. This is direct evidence of joint production taking place between the United States and Mexico on a massive scale.”

Trump’s antagonistic view of free trade and globalization, and his elevation of fanatically anti-globalist “counselors” such as Steve Bannon, will likely lead his administration to enact harmful “pro-business” policies that will ultimately weaken the economies of Mexico and the United States. What’s more, as The Financial Times’ Martin Wolf projects, engaging in a trade war with Mexico will likely lead to them turning to a left-wing populist, which has huge geopolitical ramifications.

Instead, we should look to the Bracero Program as an example for how Mexico and the United States can work together to exploit their respective, comparative advantages. This isn’t saying that the Bracero Program was perfect — I submit that there were serious injustices committed against Mexican migrants — but the framework for the program is better than the “disaster” H2-A program we have now.

Mexico is our neighbor, and one of our biggest trading partners, which should naturally create an incentive for the Trump administration to work closely with them on solutions beneficial to both sides. By allowing a more fluid movement of workers and goods between our borders, both of our countries would benefit economically.

The European Union serves as an example of the power of economic cooperation. The World Economic Forum found that collaboration between the three founding members of the EU has facilitated impressive growth in real GDP per capita over the last half-century, with Germany, France, and the Netherlands outperforming the U.S. and U.K.

And Trump is not only creating conflict with Mexico, he is setting the stage for battles with cities that have vowed to protect undocumented immigrants living within their administrative borders, known as Sanctuary Cities. The executive order on the issue states:

Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States. … These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our republic.

Setting aside Trump’s overarching stance on immigration, and focusing on the empirical claims he’s made about the level of disorder caused by cities adopting sanctuary status, Trump is wrong based on his own argument.

An analysis by Tom Wong, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, found “that counties designated as ‘sanctuary’ areas by ICE typically experience significantly lower rates of all types of crime, including lower homicide rates, than comparable non-sanctuary counties.”

The Washington Post’s Wonkblog published this helpful chart:

So there are both moral and empirical reasons why Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities isn’t — I’ll put this as diplomatically as possible — the most pressing matter for him to focus on.

Trump’s broader platform on border security and immigration, though not on globalization, prompt memories of Mitt Romney’s self-deportation comments from the January 2012 Republican presidential debate. The president’s actions intend to squeeze people out of the country, many of whom are the most vulnerable among us. Surely we are a nation of laws, but we are also a nation of compassion built on the promise of freedom and liberty; it is our duty to open our arms to those seeking a better life and protect the vulnerable.

“History of Immigration” mural at Callowhill and 2nd streets, Philadelphia.

Trump is using people of Central and South American descent as scapegoats to enact a thoroughgoing nationalist agenda. His misguided views on globalization, trade, and migration will result in administrative policies that act against our long-term interests and goals.

But it’s not all doom and gloom — I’m optimistic about the wake-up call Trump’s presidency will generate, and in many ways has already generated, in the form of activism on both the right and left. Do we need reform in many of the areas Trump is focusing on? Sure. But it’s important that our approach is in line with our values; policies based on freedom, liberty, and compassion.