{"id":293915,"date":"2017-02-09T01:07:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trumps-great-wall-and-the-drug-war\/"},"modified":"2017-02-09T01:07:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:07:02","slug":"trumps-great-wall-and-the-drug-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trumps-great-wall-and-the-drug-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s \u2018Great Wall\u2019 and the \u2018Drug War\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The argument for President Trump\u2019s \u201cGreat Wall\u201d across the U.S. southern border would be severely undercut if America expanded legalization of personal drug use, reports Jonathan Marshall.<\/p>\n<p>By Jonathan Marshall<\/p>\n<p>Attention deficit disorder isn\u2019t usually a welcome presidential attribute, but Mexicans can be thankful that Donald Trump has temporarily shifted his focus away from their country to start fights instead with Iran, the European Union, China, California and the U.S. news media.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22511\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-300x200.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22511\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22511\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/5440384453_4669d0096b_b.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C (Flickr Gage Skidmore)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The last time Trump addressed Mexico, right after the election, the peso fell 17 percent. Within days of his inauguration, Trump demanded that Mexico pay for a border wall, prompting cancellation of his planned summit meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.<\/p>\n<p>As former Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/global-opinions\/wp\/2017\/01\/31\/the-u-s-mexico-relationship-is-dangerously-on-the-edge\">lamented<\/a>, \u201cit took only one week of bilateral engagement between the new U.S. administration and Mexico to throw the relationship into a tailspin.\u201d That relationship would be better if Trump had stuck to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/business\/wall-street-journal\/donald-trump-provokes-little-mexican-war\/news-story\/02d7da5cf171644bbee4e2520ea9f25b\">view he expressed<\/a> in November 2015: \u201cI don\u2019t care about Mexico, honestly. I really don\u2019t care about Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Someday soon, however, Trump will rediscover his interest in Mexico, and relations will likely suffer again. But Mexico need not take his abuse lying down. As the buyer of more than a <a href=\"https:\/\/ustr.gov\/countries-regions\/americas\/mexico\">quarter <em>trillion<\/em> dollars in U.S. exports<\/a> \u2014 the second-largest market in the world for U.S. goods \u2014 Mexico has some leverage if Trump tries to play rough with tariffs and trade.<\/p>\n<p>And if Trump persists in sending a bill to Mexico City for his wall, Pena should seriously consider sending a bill in return to Washington to pay for the U.S. drug war.<\/p>\n<p><strong>High Cost to Mexico<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For years now, Mexico has paid an extraordinarily high price in lives and social disruption for Washington\u2019s insistence that North America\u2019s drug problem be tackled south of the border, where the drugs are grown and transported, rather than primarily in clinics and halfway houses at home to treat the medical and psychological issues of users.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19936\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19936\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz-160x160.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19936\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/MTMzMTE4ODA5NjE0NTkyNjQz-160x160.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mexican President Pena Nieto.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Successive administrations,&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/02\/08\/trumps-great-wall-and-the-drug-war\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The argument for President Trump\u2019s \u201cGreat Wall\u201d across the U.S. southern border would be severely undercut if America expanded legalization of personal drug use, reports Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall Attention deficit disorder isn\u2019t usually a welcome presidential attribute, but Mexicans can be thankful that Donald Trump has temporarily shifted his focus away from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-293915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}