Mexico on Friday published the document that US President Donald Trump earlier this week flaunted as a secret deal to curb migration, but denied that it had capitulated to the US president’s demands for a so-called “safe third country” agreement.
Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard underwent a grilling in the Mexican General Congress, where some lawmakers insisted otherwise and demanded more details on what exactly he agreed to in the last-minute deal brokered a week ago to dodge Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexican goods.
Angry over a surge of Central Americans seeking US asylum, Trump is pushing Mexico to agree to a deal in which migrants entering Mexican territory would have to apply for refugee status there, not in the US.
The language contained in the “supplementary agreement” released by the Mexican government appears to resemble that.
However, the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs insisted that the document — signed by a deputy legal adviser to the ministry and his US Department of State counterpart — was “not a binding bilateral agreement.”
Rather, the document says that the two sides agree to immediately open talks to arrive at just that — a “binding bilateral agreement” — in which Mexico “would accept the return and process refugee status claims of third-party nationals” who cross its territory to reach the US.
If in 45 days Washington decides that Mexico City’s efforts to curb migration are not enough, then the Mexican government “will take all necessary steps under domestic law” to bring that agreement into force in another 45 days, the text says.
Trump had on Tuesday waved the one-page document in front of reporters to fend off critics who said that he had extracted little in the way of new commitments from Mexico with his tariff threats.
Photojournalists managed to capture a few sentences that day, but the full contents had not previously been revealed.
They will now almost certainly add fuel to the raging debate over who got the best of whom in the Mexican tariff row.
Leftist Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has celebrated the reprieve from Trump’s tariffs as a diplomatic victory, and his government is racing to show that it is taking decisive action during the 45-day grace period.
Under the main deal, Mexico agreed to deploy 6,000 Mexican National Guards to reinforce its southern border and to expand its policy of taking back migrants as the US processes their asylum claims.
The troop deployment would be complete by Tuesday, Ebrard said, adding that 825 additional immigration officers would start work this weekend.
In Washington, Trump appeared content to play nice with Mexico.
“Big difference in the border between now and this time last week. Mexico has been doing a terrific job. Hey, 6,000 soldiers, and if it doesn’t work out, then we go back to very strong measures,” he told Fox News.
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