By Laura Carlsen
July 08, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - To praise a tyrant is
to insult a people. López Obrador’s proposed visit to
Washington is an insult to the American people, and
especially to the 37 million Mexican migrants who live
in the United States.
The purpose of the state visit with Donald Trump on July
8 is to supposedly to celebrate the entry into force of
the Mexico-United States-Canada Treaty (T-MEC) on July
1. It comes at the worst possible time.
First, AMLO is traveling to the United States at the
height of the pandemic in both countries. In the U.S., a
new outbreak concentrated in the southern states has
secured its position as the world leader in deaths from
COVID-19, largely attributed to the lack of measures and
strategies by the federal government and the disregard
for scientific knowledge that President Trump and his
supporters publicly express.
As well as the obvious hypocrisy in making a
non-essential trip to the US when most of the population
is prohibited from traveling in order to control the
pandemic, AMLO said he’s going to thank Trump “for his
gesture of support and solidarity” by selling — not
donating. – ventilators to Mexico to treat COVID-19
patients. Congratulating Trump on anything related to
his attitude toward the pandemic is inconceivable now:
in addition to recommending potentially lethal
treatments, the US president delayed the response to the
virus, dismissed and disregarded the recommendations of
his own experts, pulled the country out of the World
Health Organization, has sought to profit from the
tragedy and promoted the reopening that led to the
current crisis. In this disaster, recent studies show
that the Latino population is dying from COVID-19 at a
rate twice that of the white population, while many
migrants are unable to access health services and are
excluded from rescue support.
|
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
|
If the health context is serious, the political context
is even more serious. The main purpose of López
Obrador’s first trip abroad, his first since taking
office a year and a half ago, is to display the good
relationship he has with Donald Trump. Appeasement has
always been AMLO’s strategy, ignoring Trump’s racist,
authoritarian and often illegal actions, and
accommodating aggressions against Mexico and the cruel
treatment of the migrant community. Now he plans to pat
Trump on the back at a critical moment for Trump’s
reelection campaign. With only four months to go until
the presidential elections, everything Trump does is
thought out in electoral terms. He’s losing in the
polls. Trump needs at least part of the Latino vote, and
the praise of the Mexican president will serve to dress
him up as a statesman and friend of Mexico, despite the
constant attacks.
The Mexican president’s show of political support for
Donald Trump will also come at a time of massive
protests in the United States against racism, and the
growth of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. This
movement is profoundly radical – anti-capitalist,
feminist and pro-human rights–the antithesis of
Trump-ism. With broad support from many sectors of U.S.
society that are fed up with a repressive government of
the 1%, the movement has made remarkable progress in
defending human life and proposing new visions for
society.
Amid multiple crises and Trump’s attempts to turn back
the fight for social justice, BLM offers an
unprecedented path for change in the United States. In
the context of the pandemic and the revolt, people are
building networks of mutual support, learning new ways
of living together, dreaming hew societies, and
strengthening ties across barriers and borders. Migrant
organizations not only support their fight, they share
it. Community and national grassroots organizations are
giving the world lessons in building popular movements
and making social change in favor of the poor.
Mexico should be learning from them, rather than
kowtowing to Trump–the protesters are Mexico’s real
allies. A visit by the Mexican president to polish
Trump’s image and ingratiate himself with the corrupt
investor world he represents, is a betrayal of the
migrant community in the United States, of the growing
movement for justice and of the principles for which
millions of the kind of nation Lopez Obrador said he
would build, exactly two years ago.
- "Source"
-
Post your comment below
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
