Kerby Anderson

Mexico has been in the news because of issues ranging from immigration to tariffs. Victor Davis Hanson wonders whether Mexico is a friend or enemy or something else. He raises some good questions that often are ignored when the media talks about our neighbor to the south.

Immigration and border security are the first issue. He argues that “Mexico seems to assume that it has a sovereign right to encourage the flight of millions of its own impoverished citizens illegally into the US and further assumes that it can fast-track millions of Latin Americans through its territory and across our border.”

Drugs are a second issue. He observes that “Mexico either cannot or will not address the billions of dollars of raw fentanyl products shipped in—mostly from China—and then processed for export to the U.S. by its cartels across a nonexistent border.”

He reminds us that some 75,000 Americans on average die of fentanyl each year. This is more deaths in just the last decade than all the Americans killed in action during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.

Finally, he reports that “Mexico encourages its expatriate illegal aliens to send back some $63 billion per year in remittances. That huge sum constitutes one of Mexico's largest sources of foreign exchange, surpassing even its tourist and oil revenues.”

You can read his column in its entirety and learn more about the past president of Mexico and the current one. Some of these issues explain why the leadership in Mexico has been unwilling and perhaps unable to deal with the border issues between the US and Mexico.

Perhaps now you can see why President Trump believed he had to resort to other means to get compliance.