NEWS FROM HOME // Trump’s move to send military troops to border prompts measured response from Mexico president

WASHINGTON and MEXICO CITY — President Donald Trump said last week that he would order the U.S. Armed Forces to assume responsibility for securing the border with Mexico pending the construction of a wall.

“Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military. That’s a big step,” the president told reporters at a luncheon in Washington.

On Thursday April 5, Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto issued a formal response to Trump’s action and rhetoric, declaring in an address broadcast to Mexican media that his country’s sovereignty is his foremost priority. He added that Mexico’s government is committed to a bilateral relationship with the U.S. aimed at solving joint problems.

“President Trump: if you wish to reach agreements with Mexico, we stand ready, as we have proved until now, always willing to engage in a dialogue, acting in earnestness, in good faith, and in a constructive spirit,” Peña Nieto said in his address. “If your recent statements are the result of frustration due to domestic policy issues, to your laws or to your Congress, it is to them that you should turn to, not to Mexicans.”

Peña Nieto continued: “We will not allow negative rhetoric to define our actions. We will only act in the best interest of Mexicans.”

After his initial comments, Trump later clarified that he would deploy 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to aid U.S. border-security agencies in supervision of the vast border that extends more than 2,000 miles from Texas to California.

Both former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Barack Obama (2009-2017) used National Guard troops to guard the border at specific locations, but those measures received criticism at the time due to their cost.



U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was present at the White House meeting when Trump spoke about his intention to militarize the border.

The president, meanwhile, also wants the Pentagon to help finance construction of his border wall with Mexico, and recently he spoke with Mattis about that issue, according to the Defense Department.

Trump seems to be unhappy with the amount of funding he managed to secure for his keynote project in the recently-passed federal budget, which includes only $1.6 billion USD for construction of a frontier barrier, albeit with very restrictive conditions on how that money can be used and significantly less than the $25 billion USD he had asked the Republican-controlled Congress to provide.

To be able to use the Pentagon’s sizable budget for wall construction, however, it would be necessary to “reprogram” the funding granted to the Defense Department for Fiscal 2018, and that would require congressional action, something that would be difficult for Trump to obtain given that he would need 60 votes in the Senate to accomplish it.

A “caravan” of Central American migrants heading northwards through Mexico toward the U.S. border may have contributed to Trump’s sudden actions on National Guard deployment. Media reports indicated the migrants caravan was being disbanded by Mexican authorities.

Trump had demanded in a series of tweets that the caravan be halted.

 Sources: EFE News Agency, El Universal and other media reports

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