MEXICO CITY\u2014Mexican President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto faced calls on Thursday to disclose details of his recent telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump after media reports said Mr. Trump criticized the efficacy of Mexico\u2019s war on drug cartels.<\/p>\n
During the call last Friday, Mr. Trump is reported to have told his Mexican counterpart that Mexico wasn’t doing a good enough job fighting cartels and that the U.S. stood ready to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out,\u201d Mr. Trump said, according to a transcript obtained by CNN.\u00a0
\nPresident Donald Trump’s strong executive actions on immigration, his planned construction of a border wall, and his insinuations for stricter trade policies may cause a diplomatic crisis as Mexico’s President Pe\u00f1a Nieto plans a trip to Washington next week. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you hear about the tough phone calls I\u2019m having, don\u2019t worry about it,\u201d Mr. Trump said at the annual event. \u201cThey\u2019re tough. We have to be tough. It\u2019s time we\u2019re going to be tough, folks. We\u2019re taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. It\u2019s not going to happen anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Associated Press reported that Mr. Trump had threatened to send U.S. troops to help fight the cartels if Mexico\u2019s army was too timid or couldn\u2019t handle the challenge.<\/p>\n
The Mexican government said the AP\u2019s accounts of the remarks \u201cdo not correspond to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tone was constructive and an agreement was reached so work teams could meet often to build a positive accord for both Mexico and the U.S.,\u201d Mexico\u2019s foreign ministry said Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The reported criticism of Mexico\u2019s handling of the war on drug cartels, which has claimed about 120,000 lives since 2006, hasn\u2019t sat well with Mexicans. Mexico\u2019s army, which has maintained a wary stance toward the U.S. since the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, has lost about 400 soldiers fighting drug gangs over the past decade, according to the Mexican government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe armed forces will question their relationship with the U.S.,\u201d said Ra\u00fal Ben\u00edtez, a security analyst at the Autonomous National University of Mexico. \u201cThe [new U.S. administration] is risking throwing in the garbage, in a single week, the work of 20 years building a relationship.\u201d
\nSince taking office two weeks ago on a vow to shake up the status quo, President Donald Trump has unsettled several world leaders with his foreign-policy statements and exchanges.
\nMr. Ben\u00edtez said Mr. Trump was lighting the fire of Mexican nationalism, and stoking a feeling of national unity similar to when President L\u00e1zaro C\u00e1rdenas nationalized foreign oil firms in 1938.<\/p>\n
He said Mr. Trump\u2019s alleged mention of \u201cbad hombres\u201d that the Mexican military couldn\u2019t deal with also awoke memories of Gen. John J. Pershing\u2019s punitive and unsuccessful expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa after Mr. Villa\u2019s cross-border attack on the New Mexico town of Columbus left 18 Americans dead in 1916.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe argument is the same,\u201d said Mr. Ben\u00edtez. \u201cPancho Villa was a bad guy nobody could deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several Mexican senators called on Mr. Pe\u00f1a Nieto to disclose the details of the call to several senate committees. \u201cThis would give us some certainty about what really happened,\u201d said Gabriela Cuevas, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Mexico and a member of the conservative opposition.<\/p>\n
Whether Mr. Trump\u2019s comment was a threat, an offer of assistance, or a joke, it was inappropriate, said Alejandro Hope, a public-security expert who once worked at the country\u2019s civilian intelligence agency.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hope said Mexican and U.S. administrations have cooperated closely in the fight against drugs for more than a decade. That cooperation has included the exchange of intelligence as well as the U.S. providing equipment and training. U.S. intelligence, for instance, twice helped lead Mexican armed forces to capture fugitive drug lord Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n.
\nMexican officials have long acknowledged that corruption makes the domestic fight against drug cartels more difficult. But both Mexican and U.S. governments have said demand by U.S. drug users is the root cause of the drug war.<\/p>\n
U.S. criticism of Mexico\u2019s military has caused problems in the sometimes prickly relationship between the two nations before. In 2011, U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual resigned after WikiLeaks released several cables bearing his signature in which the U.S. envoy questioned Mexico\u2019s ability to tackle organized crime.<\/p>\n
Then President Felipe Calder\u00f3n of the conservative National Action Party was particularly angered by one cable signed by Mr. Pascual, a 23-year career diplomat, which described the Mexican army as risk-averse and inefficient.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ben\u00edtez said both U.S. and Mexican military officials have been ordered by their superiors not to talk to media about the alleged exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pe\u00f1a Nieto in an attempt to lower tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MEXICO CITY\u2014Mexican President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto faced calls on Thursday to disclose details of his recent telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump after media reports said Mr. Trump criticized the efficacy of Mexico\u2019s war on drug cartels. During the call last Friday, Mr. Trump is reported to have told his Mexican counterpart that Mexico wasn’t doing a good enough… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}