Trump brags about forcing Mexico’s hand on immigration during campaign launch

Former U.S. President Donald Trump launched his bid to return to power with a rally in New Hampshire this weekend. And just like in the early days of his successful 2016 campaign, immigration was at the top of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

The Republican leader boasted that he had forced Mexican President Andrés Manuel “AMLO” López Obrador’s hand on the issue, saying he had threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican exports to the U.S. if the country didn’t comply with his immigration demands.

Mr. Trump recalled negotiating with “the representative from Mexico” — likely a reference to Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, according to the Mexican press — and said he demanded that AMLO’s government move 28,000 troops to the border to prevent migrants from crossing into the U.S.

When Mexico refused, Mr. Trump said, he showed their representative a draft of the new tariffs and warned that they would go into effect as soon as the following.

“[The Mexican representative] was a little surprised. He said ‘may I take 5 minutes, make a call?’ I wonder who he called. He called the president and said ‘Sir, we would be honored to give you 28,000 soldiers and to keep everybody in Mexico’, even the MS-13 gang members and everything,” Mr. Trump told a cheering audience.

The former U.S. president went on to disparage the Joe Biden administration for loosening immigration controls, but had some nicer words for his former counterpart south of the border. 

“Even though he is a socialist, I really like the president of Mexico — we have a very good friend there, in fact, it took him a long time to call up President Biden, there were many leaders of countries that couldn’t believe it. Even though we were very tough on many countries… they didn’t believe the result,” Mr. Trump argued.

AMLO’s decision to delay his congratulatory call to Mr. Biden was likely related to his own political past, and not out of support for Mr. Trump, as the Mexican president has also challenged the results of previous elections in Mexico.

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