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Weekly Report - 25 June 2015 (WR-15-25)

Trump launches campaign bid with broadside against Mexico

“An offensive, reckless xenophobe.” This was how the president of Mexico’s ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), César Camacho, described the US business tycoon Donald Trump on 18 June for remarks he made during a speech to launch his presidential campaign a day earlier. Camacho was only the latest in a string of senior Mexican politicians to denounce Trump, who said that “[Mexico] is not our friend believe me; when Mexico sends its people, it is not sending its best, it is sending people that have lots of problems”. Trump also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words”.

“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some I assume are good people, but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting,” Trump said in a speech delivered from ‘Trump Tower’ in New York City. Trump is only a fringe candidate for the Republican Party with no realistic chance of winning the US presidential elections or his party’s nomination, but it is exactly these sorts of comments that could do irreparable harm to the prospects of the next Republican nominee; a post mortem after President Barack Obama’s re-election demonstrated that Hispanic voters felt alienated by the party.

Trump’s address was peppered with comments that the media simply could not ignore – and neither could senior politicians in Mexico. The interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, dismissed Trump’s remarks as “prejudiced and absurd”, while the foreign minister, José Antonio Meade, said they reflected “profound ignorance” of the contribution migrants have made to the US and its economy. Camacho said that Trump was not much of a businessman if he could not add up that he would lose the entire Latino vote as a result of his comments, adding that many Mexicans “risk their lives contributing to the growth of the [US] economy…and for the most part are law abiding”.

But perhaps the most eye-catching reaction was from Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro who branded Trump a “bandit” and a “thief”, adding that “he who messes with Mexico, messes with Venezuela”. Given that just days earlier the Venezuelan national assembly had declared Mexico’s former president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) persona non grata for a tweet about a Venezuelan football match, as ties between the two countries have grown more tense, Trump’s comments could have the unexpected result of salving diplomatic strains.

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