The Daily Signal - #480: Trump's Negotiations With Mexico Delivered a Big Win

Episode Date: June 9, 2019

President Donald Trump is claiming a big win with Mexico after the country agreed to send 6,000 troops to block migrants from crossing through. In return, Trump dropped his tariff threat. Ana Quintana of The Heritage Foundation joins us to analyze what happened. We also cover these stories:•House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, says the Justice Department is handing over more files from Mueller report.•The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to a law requiring that gun silencers be registered.•Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government would ban single-use plastics by 2021The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, June 11th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. President Trump is claiming a big win with Mexico after the country agreed to send 6,000 troops to block migrants from crossing through. In return, Trump dropped his tariff threat. We'll discuss all of that with Anna Kintana of the Heritage Foundation. Plus, Mike Gonzalez unpacks the massive protests in Hong Kong.

By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes to help us grow. Now on to our top news. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Democrat of New York, announced via press release Monday that the Justice Department was going to hand over more files from the Robert Mueller report. Quote, all members of the Judiciary Committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, will be able to view them. These documents will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the president by the special counsel.

Nadler said in a statement, he also said, as a result of the Justice Department's agreement, he would hold off on holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt. Quote, we have agreed to allow the department time to demonstrate compliance with this agreement. If the department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps. If important information is held back, then we will have no choice. but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies.

Well, John Dean, former White House counsel under President Nixon, spoke to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, and he noted some strong parallels between Russian meddling in 2016 and Watergate. Claiming one parallel, he said, quote, the targets of the hacking were the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, from which information was stolen and released to harm the Clinton campaign, and in turn would help the Trump campaign, end quote. Dean also compared Trump's request that Don McGahn fire Mueller to Nixon's request that he,

Dean, write a, quote, phony report exonerating the White House from any involvement in Watergate, end quote. Dean is a frequent critic of the president. President Trump made it clear in an interview of CNBC Monday that he expects to see China at the G20 later this month. Mr. President, just on China, we had our correspondent from Beijing telling us today. that the Chinese ministry won't confirm that you're going to be meeting with President Xi at the G20. If they don't come, if President Xi doesn't come, will that mean that the tariffs on China for the additional $300 billion in goods go on immediately? Yes, it would.

And I think he will go, and I think we're scheduled to have a meeting. I think he'll go, and I have a great relationship with him. He's actually an incredible guy. He's a great man. He's very strong and very smart. But he's for China. and I'm for the United States. It's a very simple, it's a very simple stat. He's for China, I'm for the U.S. Well, the Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to a law requiring that gun silencers be registered.

In an unsigned order, the justices declined to take the cases of two men challenging the National Firearms Act of 1934, after they were convicted for failing to register their silencers. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld their convictions. Right after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, a bakery came under fire for an allegedly racist incident. A bakery employee had confronted and chased after a black student, accusing him of shoplifting. Reportedly, the employee was then punched and kicked by two of the student's friends, according to the Washington Post, which cited police reports. Protests happened soon after, and flyers accused Gibson Bakery of being racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination.

Lots of caps there. But as the facts came out, a different picture was established. The student pled guilty to charges, including trying to steal and read a statement saying the bakery employee hadn't been racially motivated. The post, who's reporting I'm relying on,

also noted that out of the 40 arrested for attempted theft in five years at the bakery, six were black. Ultimately, the bakery sued Oberlin College, arguing that the college employees had defamed the bakery in different ways. Now, according to the Chronicle Telegram in Ohio paper, a jury has awarded $11 million to Gibson Bakery, after having found, quote, and this is quoting the newspaper, not the jury,

that the college inflicted emotional distress, interfered with business relationships, and libeled, the family-owned bakery in downtown Oberlin. Well, Canada is ramping up its war on plastic. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Marbleau on Marbleau. Monday announced his government would ban single-use plastics by 2021. Such plastics may include water bottles, plastic bags, and straws. Trudeau said that he drew inspiration from the European Union, which in March voted to ban

single-use plastics. Next up, we'll talk to Anna Quintana about Trump's Mexico deal. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialists. while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. In an interview Monday, President Donald Trump made it clear that he thinks he just pulled off a major win

through his negotiations with Mexico. Here's what he told CNBC. But I just want to say to the United States Chamber of Commerce, if we didn't have tariffs, we wouldn't have made a deal with Mexico. We got everything we wanted. And we're going to be a great partner to. Mexico now because now they respect us. They didn't even respect us. They couldn't believe how stupid we were with what's going on where somebody comes in from Mexico and just walks right

into our country and we're powerless to do anything. Whereas they have very strong immigration laws. They don't have to take anybody. They can say out you get. So we're going to be essentially using to a large extent the very powerful immigration laws of Mexico. And Mexico wants to do a good job. They're moving 6,000 soldiers to their southern border. Do you think they agreed to do that before? And they're paying them. They're moving 6,000 soldiers to their southern border. That means the people from Guatemala, the people from Honduras and El Salvador, in theory, if they do it right, they're not going to be able to get through. Nobody's going to be able to get through. And then they're also going to protect our southern border. Joining us to discuss the president's negotiations is

Anna Quintana. She's the senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who focuses on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. Anna, so what do you think? Is Trump right that this was a major win for him? I mean, I think this new deal with Mexico, it's a pretty, it's a huge deal. It's a pretty big win. I think it's significant what the Mexicans have agreed to do. Time will tell if they actually fulfill their obligations and they actually have the capacity to do so. But they actually now, have a timeline by which they need to deliver. They have measurable outcomes they need to achieve. So yeah, I mean, this is big. And for our readers who haven't been following this or our listeners, you can tell I don't podcast enough, who haven't been following this as closely. What exactly

did Mexico agree do? Sure. So Mexico has agreed to send, to strengthen their southern border, their border, their border specifically with Guatemala. It's about a 600 mile long border. They've agreed to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops. This National Guard is a new unit. that was created by the current president back in February. And the National Guard is kind of, it's a fusion of Army, Navy, and federal law enforcement. So it's kind of a mix of all, it's like a mixed bag of like Mexican security officials. They will now be, you know, strengthening their southern border to act as a deterrent against Central Americans crossing the border.

Mexico has also agreed to deepen collaboration with the United States on countering trafficking networks with inside of Mexico, specifically the trafficking networks and drug cartels that are involved with the moving of migrants and the smuggling and human smuggling and human trafficking. And I think that's an incredibly important point because that allows the U.S. increase oversight, increase presence within Mexico and within Mexican government institutions to specifically look at which cartels are doing kind of this dirty work and how better to kind of map this threat, not just in Mexico, but also inside the United States and in Central America. A few weeks ago, also there was an agreement to send a few hundred CPB officials to,

to Guatemala, so that's also another significant kind of uptick in presence. What else has been agreed upon? Let me see, because there was just so much that was done in this new agreement. Also in the U.S. and Mexico have agreed that if the numbers do not significantly decline within the next 90 days, both countries will meet again to revisit this agreement and see what can be fixed. And there's a more broadly than that, I think this now provide, this now, you now see the Mexican government looking at the issue of illegal immigration from Central America as a

national security challenge before they would view it as a humanitarian issue. And I think the shift in paradigm, right, the shift in perspective will now enable and strengthen Mexico's kind of resolve to really deal with this. So a week ago, Mexico's foreign minister was in D.C. saying, we're not going to, you know, obey your commands. We're not going to, you know, fold. And basically, they complied after it was clear that Trump was going to drop these tariffs. What do you think made them do that? I mean, it kind of makes them look weak, but clearly they thought it was worth it for them. So I don't necessarily think that Abraud that the foreign ministers said that. I think that there's a really huge challenge with U.S. media with the way that the things are

being translated. I think what Abraud was saying was that, you know, they wanted to, that the tariffs were being put on the table and that, you know, they wanted to come to negotiate in peace. And this is like Mexican typical diplomatic speak, right? If you look at this from like a Google Translate perspective, which is what the New York Times and other people, others have been doing, you're going to misinterpret or you're going to lose a lot of meaning. Rather, so Abrard and other cabinet level officials from Mexico spent all of last week inside of the United States negotiating. It was a high-level summit. But, I mean, I don't necessarily think that it makes the Mexicans look weak.

I think it's that it finally gets Mexico to highlight a few inconsistencies and hypocrisies within their own policy. Right. I mean, Central American migration through Mexico, even though it ends up in the United States, States, Mexico by not deterring it is facilitating it. And they're being, they're creating problems for the United States. So if they actually want to be a partner to America, they need to stop it. And do you think the threat of tariffs is what drove this agreement to come into place? So I'm not a fan of using tariffs to, the use of tariffs, the use of an economic penalty for a non-economic issue, particularly with the country like Mexico, that is a partner country.

it's never, it's unwise long term, but I think, you know, something pretty significant was achieved. And I mean, I got to give the president credit on the fact that he was able to pull this off because, frankly, I don't see many other tools in the U.S.'s toolkit that really could have achieved this. So the New York Times reported over the weekend, I'm going to quote here, they said, quote, the deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night, consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations, end quote. So President Trump took issue with that, and he tweeted, When will the failing New York Times admit that their front page story on the new Mexico deal at the border is a fraud, all caps, and nothing more than a badly reported hit job on me since that has been going on since the first day I announced for the presidency.

So, Anna, is the New York Times correct that Mexico had already committed to do this and that Trump is just claiming victory? No, I mean, look, I think Mexico there was a smaller, you know, one point that I forgot to bring up was the expansion of the remaining Mexico policy where Mexico will agree to hold more Central Americans that are applying for asylum in the United States. So there are small elements of previous agreements that are a component of this new, agreement. But again, this goes back to the New York Times, not having people on their staff that speak Spanish because within that article, there are many factual errors because I read the article and I was like, oh my God, this is completely wrong. You just watch the foreign minister's press conference directly after the agreement was announced and you see that there are massive, massive, like, problems here. I mean, there's just blatant lies. And so, no, I mean, I think

this is a significant escalation, a significant, like, you know, this is an exponential increase in cooperation between both countries and Mexico was willingness to do more. So Mexico, they came out on Monday. They're planning to evaluate whether this worked. You mentioned 90 days. They also said 45 days. Do you think this new agreement will actually deter people from coming to the border? What do you think? Yes. Yes. I mean, look, if you are a Central American, or if you, not even just if you're a Central American, right, if you are part of a trafficking network and it's your job to, you know, bring people across the border illegally from Mexico to Guatemala, right? So this border, it's 500 miles, almost 600 miles of jungle.

Like there's barely any military or government presence there. There's barely any presence there from the Guatemalan side. And now you hear there's going to be 6,000 new troops there at the border, making sure people don't cross. I mean, you are, there's going to be, that's a deterrent factor, right? If you now know that the Mexican government and the U.S. are increasing collaboration and mapping out these trafficking networks and undercutting their illicit financing mechanisms and undercutting, So many of the other kind of factors and conditions that allow these people to thrive, yeah, this is going to do a lot. Are we going to see an immediate decline? I think it's going to take some time. I don't necessarily think 45 days is a sufficient window.

I think 90 days is better because it gives you about three months to really see things kind of being actionable and put into place. But yeah, I think this is going to lead in the right direction. And how do you think this will affect the U.S.-Mexico relationship in the longer term? Obviously, we want to see them as an ally. They are a neighbor. And if you have to deal with a country, you know, being on your border for, you know, forever, you want to have good relations. Obviously, this kind of drastic measure, negotiation style, you don't want it to be normative long term, right? I mean, because that could be destructive.

So how do you see this fitting into a longer term relationship with Mexico? You know, that's a really good question. I think I agree with you to some degree that, yes, you don't necessarily. want to make this commonplace. You don't necessarily want it to be that bilateral relations are governed by threat of whatever, you know, to achieve X goal. I think now is a good opportunity. And I think, you know, this also is not the defining factor of the bilateral relationship, nor is it the defining factor of the bilateral relationship throughout the Trump administration. I think throughout these past two years, there have actually been a lot of positive

diplomatic engagement, a lot of positive, you know, economic engagement as well. I mean, the fact that USMCA was finally agreed upon. I mean, the Mexican Congress is about to pass it next week. That's what they've declared to do. I mean, I think there's a lot of positives that are happening behind the scenes, which thankfully allow for, you know, at times some tough love to be implemented. I just, I do hope that, let's say if the 90-day period does come up and there are some shortfalls on the Mexican side, that there, it's not going to be for a lack of, not of, of, of, of willingness for the Mexicans. And I hope that there's a bit more of understanding. from the U.S. government because we can't just keep on being a hammer at this. Because you're right.

You know, we share a 2,000 mile long border. We are partners. We're trade allies. I mean, there's just such a deep relationship there. So you recently went to El Salvador, which of course is one of the countries where migrants are coming from and coming to the U.S. Mexico border. Besides the fact that you heard a gun fight outside your hotel, which you detailed to us right before we recorded, did you get any insights into the migrant crisis from your time in El Salvador? Yeah. So it wasn't so much a gun fight because the gun fire was only going one direction, but I mean, who knows what happened on there. Okay. This is not my vocab home.

Yeah, yeah. No, you're fine. You're fine. No. So, I mean, I think it's really difficult to explain just how economically, you know, how poor the economic conditions in this country, in that country are, just how dire the circumstances are. I mean, I was talking to one person and we were talking about kind of, you know, the issue of

of just clean water and how there are so many villages throughout El Salvador where people are literally drinking water where fertilizer and other companies and other waste treatment facilities are literally dumping that water into wells and those are the water, that's the water that people are drinking. And now there's new generations of villages of people with awful kidney issues. And these are children, right? I mean, these are people. And then there's no medical care. There's children who have died on the way to hospitals because there's simply no bridges to, you know, join two cities or to connect two cities together. And they're just really, really is there are no chances at kind of better improving yourself economically because

they're just the opportunity simply are not there. And that's not even factoring in the violence and the insecurity crisis. I mean, there's just so much that the situation is quite dire. And I think, you know, there's a new possibility now in El Salvador for the conditions to actually improve. They recently had a new, their new president was recently elected. I mean, you guys were Daniel, you were able to interview him recently. And I think he's, you know, he gave his perspective on what he wants to do in the country to help relieve the migration crisis, right? You know, to help improve the economic conditions and security conditions in the country. And one of the first areas that he's tackling is really government corruption.

I mean, he so far, I think, is saving about the country about $5 million a year in firing employees who were just employees of who were relatives of the previous administration because there's like great, you know, awful amounts of like nepotism going on in that country. I don't know. I just think it's really hard to even describe how bad the situation is. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Anna. Definitely some sad food for thought with the description of the wells in El Salvador. I didn't realize it was that bad. But yeah, thank you for joining us and sharing. No, thanks for having me. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. Well, that's the sound of protesters in Hong Kong clashing with police over the weekend.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Hong Kong to protest what's called the extradition bill, legislation that if passed, would allow Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China on a range of offenses. Joining us to unpack what's happening is Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a man who lived in Hong Kong for eight years. Mike, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So, Mike, can you give us some context first here? Why is it such a big deal?

I think when people think of Hong Kong nowadays, a lot of folks think, oh, Hong Kong China, why is it such a big deal that Hong Kong residents could be extradited to the mainland? Hong Kong has a special status, and Hong Kong was promised the special status. Hong Kong was actually created by the British in the very sad circumstances of the 1840s because of the Opium War, but then it became a very successful place. I had, you know, it was a British colony until 1997 when he was handed over to China. So China promised Margaret Thatcher during the negotiations in the 1980s that it would respect Hong Kong special status. And it would respect Hong Kong's way of life and the liberties of the people of Hong Kong for 50 years after the handover.

And this idea of extraditing people to China where you don't have the rule of law, And Hong Kong, you do have the rule of law, is obviously a violation of that promise. And the people of Hong Kong just are completely rejected this. So 50 years, that's supposed to be from 1997 to, what, 2047? Yeah, 247 when, and until then, it's supposed to be one country, two systems. Hong Kong will keep its way of life. It's capitalist economy. It's freedoms.

They have the rule of law. They don't, you know, you try a trial in Hong Kong. is a legitimate thing. It's not like a kangaroo court, as it is in China. So, you know, nobody wants to be tried in the Chinese court in China, mainland China, whereas Hong Kong, the 7 million people who live in Hong Kong expect a fair trial. That's the reason why they don't want to be kidnapped. Basically, that's what it would be,

is being kidnapped out of the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental in downtown Hong Kong and sent over to China to the tender mercies of the homeland. the Chinese Communist Party, which is, you know, the equivalent of medieval Europe. Well, we've seen this in other context where China will make a deal but then try to get away with as much as it can, you know, despite that deal. What mechanism is there for enforcing this? I mean, when the British made this deal with China, how was it expected that China would be forced to abide by it? Well, there is such as thing as honor. If you put your name on something, you'd be giving your word and it's now, it's an international treaty.

entered into the United Nations. You know, it's between the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China. So China gave its word, and now it is going back on. Now there's a pretense. Carrie Lamb, the chief executive, which is the equivalent of governor,

under China, they don't have a governor, they have a chief executive, but none of the chief executives on the Chinese rules since 1997 have been freely chosen, been chosen by the people of Hong Kong in a free election, they have been chosen by a committee handpicked by Beijing. The current chief executive is Carrie Lamb. She says that, A, she's doing this with, and she's not been ordered by China to do this. And B, she's doing this also because

she doesn't want to, Hong Kong to become a place for fugitives. None of these two assertions passed the laugh test. You know, it is clear that if she's doing this on her own, then you have to ask why a Hong Kong person would be consigning her seven million compatriots to the unruly ruled by Fiat, the kangaroo courts of the PRC of the People's Republic of China, and B, nobody thinks that Hong Kong is going to become a haven for international fugitives. It hasn't become one until now. Why would it now all of a sudden become a, on the contrary, Hong Kong truly, I mean, there is very little or no corruption in Hong Kong.

You know, they have a very good record on this. There's no administrative corruption. It's like Singapore in that sense. Whereas in China, it's, you know, businesses have to pay protection. Imagine, let me pause at a scenario here. An American businessman whose partner in China is demanding outlandish intellectual sharing or outlandish payments does not want to pay and goes to Hong Kong

and all of a sudden he's going to be grabbed out of Hong Kong and sent to China to be tried or an American journalist who's reporting freely in Hong Kong all of a sudden is going to be sent to mainland China. I mean, mainland China libel, quote-unquote, is an imprisonable offense which, and libel could be anything, any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party or China's on, you know, unelected leaders or of Chinese

businesses, any criticism that could be termed, could be considered liable. And then all of a sudden, an American journalist who's writing for the New York Times for whomever is sent to China to be tried for this. It's unthinkable. Hong Kong is based on the free movement of goods and people and capital. And they're really killing the goose that laid the golden nation. egg here. So you mentioned that Carrie Lam was picked by China. Yes. But what about the other legislators in Hong Kong? I saw reports referring to the legislature as having a pro-China

tilt at this point in time. Why would Hong Kong, if they're this upset about stuff like this, be choosing people like this to represent them? Very good question. That's because they were not chosen. Hong Kong has the leg code, the legislative council, is divided between a group that is freely elected and a majority that is elected by quote-unquote functional constituencies. That means, for example, the fishermen of whom there's a teeny tiny portion of the Hong Kong people are fishermen to this day. It started out as a fishing colony, but very few people are, but the fishermen have functional representatives in Hong Kong. The lawyers have functional representatives. All of these, many of these are controlled by China. So of the people who are freely elected,

nearly all of them, if not all of them, are one democracy and want to continue to have Hong Kong's way of life. Hong Kong's opposition completely overwhelms the section of Legchco that is freely elected. It's only through the leisure demand of the functional constituencies that China is able to rig the system of Lechco as well. So there were big protests back in 2003 and then in recent years the umbrella protests led by students. How does this protest fit into Hong Kong's history of protests? Well, actually, I don't know why it continues to be this trope that the Hong Kong person, the Hong Konger, does not care about politics, not care about his political rights, does not care about his natural rights. This demonstration, just like the one in the umbrella movement, just like the ones in 2003 in which you mentioned, just like the ones that I was able to witness firsthand as a young journalist in 1989, doing Tiananmen. All these demonstrators, demonstrations prove that Hong Kong people do care about their natural rights, do care about their political rights.

It is a very advanced, extremely advanced, prosperous society that does care about being successful in business. That is all to its credit. But it also cares about the things that contribute to business success, which is the freedom of speech, freedom of actions, freedom of conscience, all these natural rights that China just plainly does not receive. respect. So you spent many years in Hong Kong. Are you hearing from people over there, what they're thinking about things right now? Do you think there's any chance that Hong Kong is able to beat this back? Or what do you think is going to happen? I don't know, because Carrie Lamb is, is, she's a very stubborn person. And she says that there's going to be a second reading of this law, I believe, on Wednesday in the Lechco. And she's determined to rhyme this through. It is clear. So a million people demonstrate in a city of seven. $7 million. But that's not really one out of seven because the grannies could not demonstrate. This is a very low march. The children could not do it.

So this is really perhaps half of the city. It's half of the city that can take to the streets. Taking to the streets, these are bankers. These are street sweepers. These are teachers. These are union members. This is people from all walks of life. Can she ignore this?

I don't know. She obviously thinks she has a constituency of one. Xi Jinping, the general secretary of China's communist China's leader, some would say China's dictator, whom obviously she wants to please. It is a debate whether the continuation of Hong Kong success is his lap on the face to the Chinese Communist Party because it is not a city that was created by China. It was a city, but it was created by the Brits. It was it was Chinese rule of law married to Chinese, sorry, English rule of law, British rule of law, married to Chinese entrepreneurialism,

to Chinese work ethic. And what it produced was immeasurable success. So how does China, if China had a choice between having a Shanghai that is a banking center, the banking center in East Asia, and Hong Kong being the banking center in East Asia, many people say, well, China really wants to see Shanghai over shadow Hong Kong. Well, it looks like a dark situation, but we'll keep following it.

Mike, I always appreciate your insights. Thanks for being on here. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And that's going to do it for us today. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or a rating in iTunes to give us feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow.

You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.