Free Republic

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to hold up a copy of the trade pact signed by him, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and President Trump, at Friday’s ceremony, despite the latter urging him to do so. Trudeau appeared to be in a bit of a feisty mood despite the historic nature of the agreement, along with Trump’s insistence that the two have become ‘great friends.’ Aside from being the only one of the three North American leaders to not hold the document up for a photo op, Trudeau referred to the President as simply “Donald” during the meeting, and...

In one of his first acts in office, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has signed an agreement with his counterparts from three Central American countries to establish a development plan to stem the flow of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. The Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the plan includes a fund to generate jobs in the region and aims to attack the structural causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sworn in Saturday as Mexico’s first leftist president since the 1970s, railing against the “neoliberal” economic policies of recent decades and calling on the U.S. to support regional development as a way of discouraging migration. In a ceremony in the lower house of congress, Mr. López Obrador donned the presidential sash before a sea of lawmakers and some 400 foreign guests, including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and adviser. Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, came to Mexico but at the last minute canceled his attendance at the inauguration. Mr....

<p>MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico’s incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transition team.</p>

FULL TITLE: Unfixable? Several nations have tried to restore democracy after populist strongmen. It was never the same. In April, aided by massive gerrymandering, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling coalition crushed opposition in Hungary’s national elections, claiming a supermajority in the parliament. The prime minister — who had used two prior terms in office to dominate media outlets, alter electoral rules so that urban areas were massively underrepresented and seize control of the top courts — moved to further consolidate his power. He is pushing Central European University, a leading academic institution backed by George Soros, whom Orban has demonized,...

Full title: Narco-Terrorism to Worsen under Mexico’s New Leftist President, State Dept. Warns; Amnesty for Drug Traffickers The overwhelming majority of illegal drugs in the United States already come from Mexico and Mexican traffickers are the greatest criminal threat to the nation, but things are about to get worse when Mexico’s new leftwing president takes over. His name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known popularly as AMLO), he opposes hardline anti-drug policies and believes in amnesty for drug war criminals. A State Department document obtained by Judicial Watch warns that Obrador, who takes over on December 1, will seek to...

Lining up on the rocky bank of the Suchiate river, which runs along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, a thronging crowd from the migrant caravan shouted to their companions squatting on the international bridge. “Venganse,” they chanted, come on over. Minutes later, groups from the bridge poured down the hill to jump on rafts made with tires and crossed into Mexico. No police stopped them. With large numbers making it over the river into Mexico by late Saturday, participants from the caravan of Hondurans and other Central Americans settled temporarily in the plaza of this border city. Some lay exhausted,...

Mexico's President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday President Trump's preferred acronym for the free trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, USMCA, is not "adequate" in Spanish. Lopez Obrador said in a tweet his chief trade negotiator, Jesús Seade, alerted him the USMCA acronym does not suit Mexican law, under which the trade pact would be a formal treaty, not an agreement. The USMCA -- short for United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- is set to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), once ratified by the three countries' legislatures. In Spanish, NAFTA was known as TLCAN,...

After days of speculation that a bilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been reached between the United States and Mexico, the Mexican president-elect insisted on bringing Canada into the deal. On Monday, Mexico and the U.S. announced a deal to change the 25-year old trade pact, with Canada pressured to sign on by Friday. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, made the comments during his speech before an event in the Mexican state of Chiapas. He said it was important that Canada was part of the deal.

President Donald Trump says the United States is close to a “big Trade Agreement” with Mexico and he’s citing improving ties between the two countries. […] He’s spoken of better relations with America’s neighbor following the rise of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The U.S. and Mexico have been discussing a trade deal as part of negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Trump administration is seeking a revised version of that trade deal with Mexico and Canada. …

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent U.S. President Donald Trump a letter calling for a swift conclusion to NAFTA negotiations and pledging his wish to reset relations between the two countries, Mexican officials said on Sunday. Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent U.S. President Donald Trump a letter urging a swift end to NAFTA negotiations and suggesting the leaders could work well together due to their shared anti-establishment style, Mexican officials said on Sunday. The letter was delivered during a recent meeting in Mexico with senior U.S. officials, and details were disclosed once Trump had received it, said...

President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Sunday released a seven-page letter he sent to U.S. President Donald Trump detailing how he plans to improve Mexico's economy and security when he takes office in December so that Mexicans do not feel the need to migrate. "There will be many changes," he promised in the letter. "And in this new atmosphere of progress with well-being, I'm sure we can reach agreements to confront together the migration phenomenon as well as the problem of border insecurity." Lopez Obrador also suggested the two countries draft a development plan backed by public funds and invite...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would cancel the planned purchase of eight military helicopters from the United States as part of cost-cutting measures.Lopez Obrador, who handily won this month’s presidential election on pledges to fight corruption and cut government waste, said there had been plans to pay 26 billion pesos ($1.36 billion) for the helicopters to be used by Mexico’s navy. “This purchase is going to be canceled because we can not make this expenditure,” Lopez Obrador told reporters on Wednesday after meeting with incoming legislators from his MORENA party. Lopez Obrador is...

There will be no more internal spying on opposition politicians, incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Saturday, recalling that he was tailed for years by federally-employed spies. There will be no more Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen) either, following its dissolution as part of the new government’s austerity measures. The newly-appointed public security secretary, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, announced the move on Saturday. “Cisen disappears because it has been discredited due to the political use that was made of it,” Durazo said. The incoming secretary said a new organization, the National Intelligence Agency, will replace it. López...

Mexico’s incoming president on Tuesday thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for his “respectful attitude” toward the next Mexican administration and held out hope for joint progress on tackling illegal migration ahead of a major meeting this week. Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is due to meet on Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others for talks in Mexico City. The meeting will be the first major face-to-face discussions between Lopez Obrador and his team and U.S. officials since the leftist won a landslide victory on...

Coasting to victory on promises to reign in rampant corruption, Mexican president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sent shock waves through the Americas. Few realize that his election is likely to increase the number of low-income, low-skill illegal aliens coming to the United States. Obrador admires Cuba and former Chilean socialist leader Salvador Allende. Venezuela’s socialist dictator Hugo Chávez helped with previous presidential campaigns by providing advisors and Venezuelan ambassador reportedly attended meetings with Obrador supporters. While Mexican presidential candidates have long supported illegal aliens coming to the United States, Obrador’s rhetoric has been different. Instead of campaigning on the...

Mexico’s president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Monday thanked President Trump for congratulating him on his election win and said the pair will “reach an understanding," according to The Associated Press. López Obrador, who triumphed in Sunday’s presidential election over the ruling PRI party, is a leftist who has previously criticized Trump. He wrote a book titled "Oye, Trump" ("Listen Up, Trump"), which criticizes the U.S. president's plans to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. Trump tweeted his congratulations to López Obrador on Monday. "I look very much forward to working with [Lopez Obrador]," Trump tweeted on Monday....

Mexico elected a new president Sunday and his win should impact the U.S. debate over immigration. In his acceptance speech Andrés Manuel López Obrador, vowed to root out corruption in Mexico, even if found among his friends and family. And he told Mexico’s poor that he would fight for them first. He also had a special message for immigrants. He said those who want to “emigrate should do so for pleasure, not out of necessity.” He said he would first work to tackle poverty in Mexico. An estimated 44 percent of Mexicans live below the poverty line and 7.6 percent...

The Mexican peso fell against the U.S. dollar on Monday after voters in the second-largest Latin American economy overwhelmingly voted in favor of a far-left candidate as its new president. The peso pulled back 0.6 percent versus the dollar, erasing slight gains seen on Sunday, to trade at 20.032. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, better known by his initials AMLO, received more than 50 percent of the vote in an election held Sunday. His two closest rivals only got about 23 percent and 15 percent of the vote respectively. His victory, however, could lead to tougher negotiations between Mexico, the U.S....

He has just been elected commander-in-chief of a nation mired in an intractable drug conflict that has claimed more than 200,000 lives in little more than a decade. But on Tuesday, Mexico’s incoming president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, claimed he would waive the right to close protection in a bid to stay close to the people. “I don’t want bodyguards, which means the citizens will take care of me and protect me,” López Obrador, or Amlo, as he is best known, told reporters as he called on Mexico’s incumbent president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to discuss the transition. Amlo, a 64-year-old...