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Fences and Neighbors
There is much to cheer about President Trump’s first decisions as President. Conservatives are almost certainly going to love his Supreme Court pick, his stepped-up efforts to deport criminal aliens, the approval of two oil pipelines stubbornly blocked by the previous administration, and more.
Trump remains a potential time bomb however, both because of his genuine beliefs and because of his unwholesome character. Leave aside the distractions about crowd sizes and vote fraud. There is an aspect to Trump’s egotism that is more than unseemly or clownish; it’s aggressive. He enjoys disparaging and demeaning others personally, often about things (like their appearance or their time of the month) that few over the age of 11 would stoop to.
These two strands – Trump’s misguided view that trade is bad for America, and his penchant for humiliating others came together this week. The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, cancelled a meeting with President Trump, signaling an escalation of tensions with our southern neighbor. This is entirely our fault.
It’s one thing to stress getting control of our borders. Even those who believe that immigration is a net positive for the nation agree that illegal immigration must be better policed. But cracking down on illegal immigration should mean getting our own house in order. It should mean policing all of our borders, not just the one with Mexico, and it should mean due diligence about visas overstays. Visitors who overstay their visas amount to at least half, and probably closer to 60 percent, of those entering the country illegally now. They arrive at airports, not across the Rio Grande. The great wave of illegal crossings from the south crested in 2007 and has declined steadily since. As immigration hawk Mark Krikorian noted in 2015, “Border crossings really are way down.” Well, some border crossings are way down, others not. More Mexicans cross the border heading south now than north. In other words, net migration from Mexico is negative.
One of the blessings the US has always enjoyed is good neighbors. As Aaron David Miller put it, “The United States is the only great power in the history of the world that has had the luxury of having nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south, and fish to its east and west.”
But that can change. Not content with proposing a totally unnecessary wall across our entire southern border (double fencing is much cheaper, easier to maintain, and effective), President Trump felt the need to insult and humiliate Mexico. It began with the accusation that the Mexican government was “sending” the illegals who crossed the border and somehow complicit in their traffic of crime and drugs. In fact, the Mexican government cooperates with the US in fighting drug trafficking and other crimes. Just last week, Mexico extradited drug lord “El Chapo” to the US for prosecution. Further demeaning our friends to the south, President Trump made forcing Mexico to pay for a wall part of his stump speech and has refused to drop the demand.
Naturally, Mexicans are offended and outraged by this insult. “We’re not paying for your [expletive] wall,” fumed former Mexican president Vicente Fox. And they’re worried, and should be, that Trump has proposed to “renegotiate” the NAFTA trade agreement, which he describes as “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.”
One reason that fewer Mexicans are attempting to enter the US illegally since 2007 may well be that NAFTA has succeeded in improving the jobs picture there. (Another reason is surely that the birthrate has declined, which always reduces emigration.) Fred Smith, founder and chairman of FedEx estimates that NAFTA makes the US $127 billion richer every year than it would be without it.
So the two areas of maximum importance to stability and prosperity in our hemisphere, trade and mutual respect, are both under assault by our president.
It is not written in stone that Mexico will remain a stable nation and friendly neighbor. Mexico is under stress due to falling oil prices, corruption, and other woes. The peso has lost 10 percent of its value due to fears about NAFTA, and as Jose Cardenas notes in National Review, a leftwing, Hugo Chavez-like demagogue named André Manuel López Obrador, could stand to benefit from the current uncertainty and understandable resentment.
Good fences may make good neighbors. But this wall, and particularly the way Trump has rubbed Mexicans’ noses in it, may turn a good neighbor bad fast.
Published in Domestic Policy, Economics, Immigration, Politics
A good neighbor wouldn’t unload its destitute and criminals upon us and demand we pay for them.
Note:
Personal attacks.[redacted]
Unwholesome character. That would imply he has done things like left people to die and cover it up, used his power of position to demand sexual favors in the Oval Office, engaged in denouncing police as racist criminals, or entering war with rules of engagement that increase the risk of death for our soldiers well beyond acceptable.
When you can cite your equivalent classification of past politicians with a phrase like ‘unwholesome character’ for their deeds, I might be able to get past your opening paragraphs.
Your personal dislike is reducing my ability to accept your conclusions.
Your statements about Mexico being a stable neighbor seem to completely ignore the power and influence the cartels have in running the country. We have a hostile, situation right now , with essentially a series of crime families with incredible wealth operating with impunity on both sides of the border.
Would it? Is character an all-or-nothing gambit? You’re either a murderer or you’re good?
Mona, and pretty much everyone else on the right, has criticized Obama for more than 8 years about his unwholesome character; they criticized Hillary about her unwholesome character. Trump is our president, and it is perfectly legitimate to grade him in the same way we would grade anyone else. If we don’t, then how can we go around criticizing the left?
I heard criticism of policy. Cite me the equivalent phrase where she challenged their character with equivalen vehemence
I remember when I used to read Mona Charen – admittedly a decade ago – and smile when I finished the Column. Now I just shake my head sadly at how her columns are so totally wrong.
“…often about… their time of the month” – One comment about one very rude person which some construed as a comment about her menstrual cycle is not “often”, Mona, it is once.
“an escalation of tensions… entirely our fault.” – Mexico has done nothing to try to help us with the flow of people illegally crossing our border from the south – and not just Mexicans, another point on which you are wrong. The “tension” comes from there, and I think you know it.
Pew admits their data is flawed and unverifiable when they say 870,000 Mexicans entered the USA and exactly 1 million left USA for Mexico. It also leaves out the crucial data of non-Mexicans crossing the border from the south. It is the height of gullibility of Obama Administration numbers to believe more people crossed heading southward than northward. I assume that since you still believe that, you still believe the phony “eleven million illegals” number they’ve been using since 1995.
President Nieto needs to start working with the USA to improve the situation in his country, instead of blaming President Trump for his own failures. Canceling the meeting with Trump humiliates the people of Mexico, not the USA.
“It’s hard to think of another figure whose self-esteem is so inversely proportional to his merit.
So welcome to our world, liberals. Now that your eyes are opened, take a look at the completely unjust, snide and dishonest way Obama talked about Republicans at the Georgetown University panel on poverty a few days ago.”
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/national-opinions/article44599740.html#storylink=cpy”
I remember when people used to come here to discuss the ideas contained within posts instead of disparaging the people that wrote them and virtue signal about how they don’t read them anymore.
Not quite the way it works. We have established a welfare state that creates a great many bad incentives. Without that, the influx of individuals (regardless of from where) into our country would only help our economy thrive. It is those same democrat policies that conservatives have been fighting against since FDR, which have helped to create the problem that we now have with bad incentives causing the wrong sort of immigration.
Interestingly, when Mona was on the last flagship podcast, she discussed at length the interrelation that all of these seemingly unrelated problems have with basic conservative values, and why it is that characteristic that is valuable in a president and somewhat lacking in trump (that characteristic being an understanding, or a desire to understand, basic conservative principles).
I don’t have any problem with a strong border – heck, even Mona praises a strong border in the OP – but there are better ways to solve immigration, and conservatives are absolutely right to criticize Trump for preferring the heavy-handed approach over something better, which might also solve many of our local problems as well (namely, massive welfare reform).
Fences:
We have big problem with illegal aliens. A wall will not fix anything.
Using a wall to stop illegal aliens is like trying to trying to cure ebola by giving the patient a bath to wipe away the blood.
The only cure to illegal aliens is to remove the incentive, which means ending socialism, and the birthright citizenship. Only people born here legally should be citizens, and social security, free schools, etc., need to stop.
So you supported Williamson throwing in the Uday and Qusay reference because of his “ideas”. Leading with snark IS part of the presentation and is part of the discussion, despite your attempt to shut it down/
Is your assertion that any criticism of Trump needs to be accompanied, in the same column, with additional and more powerful criticism of someone on the left?
Have you read much of the writings of conservative intellectuals? Does it bother you when Edmund Burke talks about conservative principles and doesn’t spend that time disparaging his political opponents? Conservatism is about ideas, while the personalities come and go. Conservative pundits apply those ideas to whichever politician happens to be in the spotlight at any given time.
That is the difference between a conversation about ideas and partisan cheerleading. One actually gets us somewhere. There’s value in the other, to be sure… but that value is at rallies, not in discussions.
You are right, and I apologize to the readers. My disappointment in a person I used to admire overwhelmed me. I will honestly do my best to keep that under control in the future.
Based on your logic, we can get rid of all customs, border patrol, barriers of any kind and laws about citizenship and green cards, as they are unnecessary . All we need to do is get rid of socialism.
I believe I said that the particular turn of phrase was unhelpful and should not have been included.
Actually it’s the difference between treating the symptom and curing the disease.
Fair enough and well said. A lot of us are disappointed in people we used to see as allies – on all sides.
I grew up on the border. That’s exactly the way it works.
Moreover, importing cheap foreign labor (or outsourcing in order to gain access to it abroad) does nothing to help native-born working-class Americans thrive.
This is precisely what Mona was getting at in her discussion on joint podcast the other week. I don’t know if that point really sunk in, as Peter seemed to be misinterpreting some of it (no fault of his own, a podcast is a difficult format), but it was a very good point.
Simple question. Answer is NO.
I come here to read actual policy oriented criticism, not personal insults. Instead of a critique of the President’s actions on changing our border policies, I got a lot of baggage of personal insults and silly nonsense. I then proceeded to explain that such baggage reduces my estimation of the quality and unbiased examination of the facts that would lead to the counter arguments.
Ricochet seems to want to become the Salon or Huffington Post of the Remnants of the Right, with invective served up early and in heaping doses with a dollop of argument.
My opinion as offered is that it is not effective. You are free to love it all you wish.
As Sklyer pointed out, a correction of incentives really does eliminate that whole “demand we pay for them” thing. Yes, I agree that we should deport criminals. I don’t care if the destitute want to come here to work.
You’re simply wrong about labor. There is no such thing as “cheap labor.” There is unskilled labor, and with our education, that is something that there is actually something of a glut of in the US. Utilizing “foreign” (or local, it really doesn’t matter) labor is always a good thing, because it frees up our capital (including workers) for other endeavors. That’s the way the market works. If your argument was sound, then the same argument would apply to high-school kids working jobs. Should we increase the working age to 21? Require college educations? Of course not. There is no static income class in this country, and movement among various strata is a great thing that has helped our economy to thrive.
I’m optimistic about Trump. I’ve opened my mind to the idea that he has unique talents that will get good results where other politicians like Cruz or Rubio might not. However, he also has unique disadvantages that Cruz and Rubio do not have. I think the chance the Cruz or Rubio would be impeached based on doing something irrational at about 0.01%. With Trump, I’d put the chances at maybe 10-20%. So, I’m optimistic in that I think more likely than not (>50% chance) Trump will do well, but I’m not confident.
Comparing his character to Democrats doesn’t change any of that.
In court, character discussions are often inadmissible, except when character lies at the heart of the debate. Such is the case with this essay.
The problem, TKC, is that you got to “unwholesome character,” and started writing your comments about how much you dislike Mona, without digesting the actual point she was making.
The tendency to alienate and insult foreign governments is an extension (or natural manifestation) of the very “unwholesome character” trait that she was referencing. It is integral to his foreign policy, and therefore a necessary component to “any actual policy oriented criticism.”
You don’t think that the President’s character, the way it expresses itself and the way he interacts diplomatically with foreign governments or even domestic allies matters?
I would encourage you to reconsider, though. I’d love to have a longer discussion with Mona (ahem! TPTB?!), but I was really impressed with what she was hinting at on the flagship podcast… It showed some pretty deep thinking about broader conservative ideas (i.e. things that were true in the 1700’s and remain true today, regardless of Trump) and how those things apply in today’s analysis. If you’re turned off by the fact that she doesn’t like Trump (it doesn’t bother me terribly, as I don’t like him, either), that’s perfectly understandable. But her analysis (and historical insight) is very good.
Extremely debatable. And you want to stop automation too? Good luck.
That doesn’t logically follow, though. That is indeed the cure to illegal aliens, which is all Skyler said.
But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other reasons why we should have a secure border (although, as was suggested in the OP, a wall may not be any more effective than other measures). Getting rid of socialism will stop the flood of immigration (if it still exists), but we still need to be able to deport criminals, monitor our security, etc… etc… etc…
So no, customs, border patrol, barriers and laws and so forth are all still perfectly necessary, even if you try to do a reductio ad absurdum with Skyler’s point.
I got to that part and and stopped too, took a few breaths, then still decided to register my disgust. Poorly registered and I wish I hadn’t but this seems like a David Brooks audition piece.
This is the only chance we will ever have in our lifetimes to secure the border. Ever.
“Mexico is under stress due to falling oil prices…”
???
Border crossings may or may not be down. But if they are down it’s because everyone that wanted to come has. Try building a house in Charleston SC without Mexican help.