President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador assured this Monday that the former US president Donald Trump he “likes him very much” even though he is a “capitalist”.
It wasn’t always like this. Before becoming president, López Obrador questioned the then US presidential candidate on several occasions, who during his campaign made the construction of a “beautiful wall” a motto and priority and described Mexican migrants as criminals and rapists.
In 2016, Marcelo Ebrard, who would later become the foreign minister of the López Obrador government, described Trump as the “worst enemy that Mexico has faced in years,” and called for “stopping him” by voting. However, the former US president won the elections in November of that year.
On the same day as Trump’s inauguration in USALópez Obrador said that the Republican’s mandate “means a vulgar threat to human rights in the foreign policy of the United States,” due to Trump’s plan to build the wall.
A few days later, via Twitter, López Obrador wrote: “President Trump: your wall attacks us and leaves the Statue of Liberty as a legend. We will go to international tribunals. Long live the fraternity”. He also demanded the then Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, an urgent meeting with Trump to defend the human rights of Mexican migrants.
The then Morena candidate even demanded to file a complaint with the United Nations against Trump for “violation of human rights and racial discrimination.”
He assured that he would create a Civic Front in Defense of migrants and against the xenophobia of which he accused the Trump administration.
Read also: AMLO denies that Trump has disrespected Mexico; “that’s how he is”, he justifies
In June 2017, López Obrador presented his book “Hey Trump”, in which he mentioned proposals and actions in defense of migrants in the United States, in addition to describing Trump’s wall as an “oppressive work”, as it was in his Berlin moment.
“It is a scoundrel that Trump and his advisers express themselves about Mexicans as Hitler and the Nazis referred to the Jews, just before undertaking the infamous persecution and abominable extermination.” He also called it a “neo-fascist”.
In his campaign, López Obrador assured that once he became president of Mexico, Trump would have to “learn to respect” Mexicans.
But everything changed with the arrival of López Obrador to the power. Donald Trump He became the first president that the Mexican visited, in Washington, and while there, he forgot the American’s offenses against migrants and his past warnings.
The Mexican thanked Trump for having treated his country “with kindness and respect.” “You have not tried to treat us as a colony, but on the contrary, you have honored our status as an independent nation. He has treated us as what we are, a country and a worthy people”.
Trump, for his part, began to speak of López Obrador as a figure he liked, although he continued with his immigration pressure and threatened tariffs if Mexico did not cooperate.
This weekend, Trump assured that he managed to “bend” Mexico during his presidency.
“The highest representative of Mexico came just below the highest, just below the boss who turns out to be President López Obrador). He came into (my office) and (the Mexican official) laughs at me when I tell him: ‘We need 28,000 soldiers on the border, for free.’ He looked at me and said something like ‘(Deploy soldiers) for free? Why would we do that in Mexico?’ I told him, ‘We need something called ‘Stay in Mexico,'” Trump told supporters at a rally in Ohio.
Foreign Minister Ebrard traveled to Washington between June 2 and 27, 2019, in an attempt to curb Trump’s threat of tariffs.
According to the American, the tone of the Mexican changed completely when he threatened tariffs on imports from Mexico.
“After that (he) looked at me and said: ‘Sir: it would be an honor to have 28,000 soldiers on the border! It would be an honor to have ‘Stay in Mexico’! We want to have ‘Stay in Mexico!’” Trump said. “I’ve never seen anyone bow down like that.”
Even so, he assured that “the president of Mexico is a very nice guy. I like him very much. He is a socialist, but I like him. He is one of the socialists that I like.”
This Monday, López Obrador replied:
“It is very good that it is known that we are not going to allow any party, of the two in the United States, any candidate, to use Mexico as a piñata,” he warned. However, he rejected that Trump has disrespected him with his statements: “He is like that.” And he assured that although “he is a capitalist”, he likes Trump very much.
agv