{"id":15867,"date":"2018-07-03T16:24:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T21:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/?p=15867"},"modified":"2018-07-03T16:24:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T21:24:14","slug":"trump-and-mexicos-new-leader-both-headstrong-begin-with-a-good-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/trump-and-mexicos-new-leader-both-headstrong-begin-with-a-good-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Mexico\u2019s New Leader, Both Headstrong, Begin With a \u2018Good Conversation\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times \/ Michael D. Shear and Ana Swanson \/ July 2<\/a><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump reached out to Mexico\u2019s new populist president-elect on Monday in an early, but potentially short-lived, show of d\u00e9tente, saying the two leaders engaged in a \u201cgood conversation\u201d about border security and the North American Free Trade Agreement.<\/p>\n

The two countries remain locked in a heated dispute over the fraught issues of immigration and trade, areas that may face difficult complications from the\u00a0election of Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, a leader known for being as strong-headed and nationalist-minded as Mr. Trump \u2014 and just as willing to engage in a public clash of ideas.<\/p>\n

Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador, who has said Mexico will not be a \u201cpi\u00f1ata\u201d for foreign governments, has said he will stand up to Mr. Trump to protect his country\u2019s interests. And he may find himself under pressure by an electorate that, weary of Mr. Trump\u2019s hectoring and disparaging comments about Mexico, will demand that he cede no ground, leaving little room to manage the relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are going to be so many opportunities for this to go wrong,\u201d said Duncan Wood, the director of the Wilson Center\u2019s Mexico Institute. \u201cIf there are too many provocations, if there are too many insults against Mexico, L\u00f3pez Obrador will not be able to just sit back and take it. His character shows that he will respond, and that could lead us down a dark path.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Relations between Mexico and the United States are already tense, particularly over trade and the future of Nafta, which has enabled companies to create critical supply chains across North America. Talks to revise the trade pact among Mexico, the United States and Canada have stalled over dramatic changes proposed by the Trump administration, including altering protections for investors and rules for manufacturing automobiles in North America.<\/p>\n

Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador has been a longtime critic of the 1994 trade pact and has given no indiction he will be more willing to accommodate Mr. Trump\u2019s demands than the current Mexican government. Among other things, Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador has blamed Nafta for triggering an influx of grain from the United States that ultimately forced Mexican farmers off their land.<\/p>\n

But Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador has pledged to continue to renegotiate Nafta \u2014 a promise that could ultimately put him in the position of defending the trade agreement against the frequent criticisms of Mr. Trump, who has called it the \u201cworst\u201d trade deal in history and blamed Mexico for siphoning off American jobs. Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s advisers have said they will start working with the current Nafta negotiators soon to ensure a smooth transition when the new administration takes office on Dec. 1.<\/p>\n

The president-elect has also taken a far more critical view than his predecessor of corporations \u2014 which have among the most to win or lose with a revised Nafta. He has long criticized the role of multinational corporations in Mexico and once promised to turn the presidential palace into a public park. He has promised to review dozens of outstanding oil and gas exploration contracts for corruption, potentially delaying hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment. His election has put the value of the peso and Mexican government bonds on a more volatile path.<\/p>\n

During the campaign, Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador and his advisers worked to reassure voters and industry that he would provide continuity for the private sector.<\/p>\n

Known as an anti-establishment candidate, Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador is a divisive figure with Mr. Trump\u2019s flare for capturing attention. After a failed bid for the presidency in 2006 against Felipe Calder\u00f3n, Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador held a faux inauguration ceremony for himself, appointed a shadow cabinet and protested in the middle of the capital for weeks.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump and Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador spoke for 30 minutes Monday morning after the latter \u2019s landslide victory Sunday night. The call came just hours after Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador in a rare, friendly tweet that said: \u201cI look very much forward to working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incoming Mexican president in turn pledged never to \u201cdisrespect\u201d the United States government. In a tweet of his own, Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador said there was \u201crespectful treatment\u201d on the call.<\/p>\n

Any period of gracious talk may be short lived, however, with Mr. Trump almost certain to continue his tirade about the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, and Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador virtually guaranteed to fire back in ways that his predecessors did not.<\/p>\n

Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador \u201chas committed to a louder, more combative posture with the U.S.,\u201d said Carlos M. Guti\u00e9rrez, the former secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush. \u201cHe\u2019s getting ready to take it up a notch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump campaigned for the presidency by demanding a wall across the southern border and suggesting that people being \u201csent\u201d from Mexico into the United States are \u201cbringing drugs. They\u2019re bringing crime. They\u2019re rapists.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, Mr. Trump has escalated his language against Mexico, accusing Democrats in a tweet of wanting \u201cillegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The New York Times \/ Michael D. Shear and Ana Swanson \/ July 2<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times \/ Michael D. Shear and Ana Swanson \/ July 2   WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump reached out to Mexico\u2019s new populist president-elect on Monday in an early, but potentially short-lived, show of d\u00e9tente, saying the two leaders engaged in a \u201cgood conversation\u201d about border security and the North American Free Trade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":15378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1516,1518,1017,1475],"tags":[1753,1341,1752,1754,1566],"class_list":["post-15867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-international-markets","category-news","category-oil-gas","tag-mexico-economy","tag-nafta","tag-oil-and-gas-exploration-contracts","tag-respectful-treatment","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}