Mexican standoff over tariffs is theater of the absurd

SAN DIEGO -- Did you notice that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and U.S. President Donald Trump both claimed victory in the recent tariff standoff?

The prospect of an ugly trade war between Mexico and the United States was never a win-win situation. Yet both sides say they won.

It's absurd. This is all political theater, a pair of "Mission Accomplished" photo-ops on both sides of the border.

Obrador riled up supporters in Tijuana, saying that Mexico had triumphed at the negotiating table and emerged with its national dignity intact. "Mexico Wins!" screamed the headline in one Mexican newspaper, while another said that Mexico had "deactivated" Trump. Obrador was cool and condescending, telling the crowd: "To President Donald Trump I raise not a closed fist, but an open and honest hand."

Meanwhile, Trump told his supporters via tweet that the tariffs he had threatened to impose against Mexico would be "indefinitely suspended" because of an "agreement" with Mexico to stop illegal immigration into the United States.

For its part, Mexico supposedly agreed to send thousands of law enforcement officials to the Mexico-Guatemala border, and also agreed to expand its policy of allowing asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while US officials process their claims.

According to press accounts, both concessions were made over the past six months. So they were not a result of the standoff.

Regardless, Mexico's concessions aren't worth more than a fistful of pesos. You'll recall that the United States has also, over the years, deployed thousands of law enforcement officials -- i.e., border patrol agents -- to the U.S.-Mexico border, along with thousands of National Guard troops. And it has still been unable to stop the flow of migrants. And what's the point of processing asylum claims in Mexico rather than the United States? It just delays the decision that Americans have to make about whether to take in these folks -- or ship them back home.

Furthermore, the White House has an odd definition for what constitutes an agreement. Mexico gave up something, and the United States gave up nothing -- except a threat that it could never afford to make good on anyway. That's not an agreement. That's a stickup.

To recap, against the advice of his own economic advisers and senators in his own party, Trump targeted, by some measures, our No. 1 trading partner and threatened to impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican goods, which was set to increase to 25% in four months.

But a tariff isn't an attack on a foreign country. It's a tax on U.S. consumers. So if Trump had followed through -- which he insists he still might do if Mexico doesn't keep its promises -- the folks who would have paid the consequences live on this side of the border.

It occurs to me that the relationship between Mexicans and Americans is very give-and-take. They give, we take.

Mexicans already clean our homes, cut our lawns, fix our roofs, cook our food, wash our dishes, care for our elderly, wipe our kids' noses, build our houses, care for our pets, shop for our groceries, tend to our livestock, pick our crops, make our beds and make our lives easier in countless other ways. If you're living an upper-middle-class lifestyle despite only earning middle-class wages, because you can afford housekeepers and nannies at bargain prices, thank the Mexicans. If you're at all comforted by the fact that the Social Security system is bolstered by millions of dollars paid into the system by undocumented immigrants who will never collect what they put in, that's the Mexicans, too.

Still, Trump wants the Mexicans to do even more -- and fix our broken immigration system. Americans wrecked it over the last few decades by injecting racism, letting employers off the hook, giving family unification priority over the needs of our labor market and failing to create adequate avenues for people to immigrate legally. So naturally it's up to the Mexicans to restore order.

It's bizarre. The same people who used to tell us that we couldn't trust Mexico to control immigration into the United States now assure us that we can trust Mexico to control immigration into the United States.

It's also illogical. Here immigration restrictionists have spent decades insisting that Mexico is inferior, dysfunctional and corrupt. And now we're supposed to believe that -- even with its flaws -- our neighbor can save us from our own destiny.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.