Earlier this week, the administration of President Donald Trump announced the taxation of 25% prices on imports from Mexico to bring some. On March 6, the American president announced that he was exempting all the products that were part of the American-mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement for a month.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense continued its military accumulation along the southern border, deployment of 3,000 additional soldiers.
Trump said these measures were necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl and undocumented people trying to cross the United States from Mexico. However, the data show that fentany’s deaths have decreased considerably in the past year, as is the number of border crossings.
So what is Trump’s real motivation?
First, Trump tries to divert the attention of chaos from his own internal economic policies. Although it has campaigned on the “repair” of the American economy, inflation increased to 3%, consumer confidence has remained fragile, petrol prices continue to increase and thousands of federal employees have been dismissed.
Second, and more importantly, Trump tries to impose a Monroe Redux doctrine, where he can intimidate Mexico and, by extension, the rest of Latin America, in accordance with his new era of gunboat diplomacy without fear of reprisals.
These are dangerous moments for Mexico and Latin America. The signs of a strategic and military accumulation are clear: the change of name of the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America”, the labeling of eight Mexican cartels such as terrorist organizations, the deployment of CIA secret drone missions in the depths of Mexican territory, the deployment of a Stryker brigade combat team which is presented at the table.
The deployment of troops and increasing rhetoric creates the conditions for an American military foray into Mexico. If we take place, he would integrate perfectly into the long history of the American aggression against his neighbor in the South and Latin America as a whole, which started 200 years ago with the so-called Monroe doctrine.
In 1823, the president of the time, James Monroe, proposed a policy which, under the cover of opposing European colonialism in the Western hemisphere, sought to consolidate the American supremacy of the region.
The doctrine served as a springboard for the imperial expansion of the United States in the territories of northern Mexico during the American-Mexican war (1846-1848), when the United States carried out immense land on the ground, taking charge of the land which are part of the States of today California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming.
The American army then used the upheaval of the Mexican revolution (1910-1920) as an excuse to invade its southern neighbor twice more.
Doctrine was used to justify the American invasion of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba, as well as various secret interventions across Latin America.
Today, while the United States is faced with challenges to its world hegemony in China and Russia in the Americas, a Monroe Redux doctrine emerges as an ad hoc justification to re-establish American domination in the region.
Mexico is among the first to suffer for a reason. The country occupies not only a strategic location – sharing a 3,000 km border (2,000 miles) with the United States – but it also has the second largest economy in Latin America, with a GDP of $ 1.79 Billion. Although Mexico’s economy is closely linked to the United States, it diversified its business partners, with China – the American Archenem – being its second commercial partner with a commercial volume of $ 100 billion.
In 2024, direct foreign Chinese investments (IDE) reached $ 477 million, compared to $ 13.6 million in 2008. In 2023, Mexico had expressed interest in joining the BRICS dominated by China, which were quickly dissipated by the president of the time, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. However, this year, the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, invited Mexico, as well as Uruguay and Colombia, to join the next BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July.
Mexico is currently led by leftist president Claudia Sheinbaum Prado, who is a cool but fierce leader, praised by peers. It benefits from an approval rating of almost 80% and has said on several occasions that it would defend the sovereignty of Mexico.
In an effort to show that she is ready to cooperate and avoid prices, her government has managed to intensify anti-drug operations, to make more than 29 high-level cartel leaders in the United States and to announce a record number of fentanyl arrests and convulsions and other illegal drugs last month.
But Trump is not really interested in solving the complex problem of smuggling and drug migration that his country has created with his dependence on drugs and cheap workforce. The American president really wants to use military accumulation on the border to intimidate the Mexican president and brake the influence of China in Mexico.
It remains to be seen if Sheinbaum will queue. Meanwhile, Trump will continue to use the pretext of war against drugs and migration to establish his MONROE REDUX doctrine on Mexico and Latin America. With this, he threatens to put the Western hemisphere over 200 years.
The opinions expressed in this article are the own authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
