During the administration of former President Donald Trump, the Government of Mexico agreed to reduce migration to that country in exchange for getting help in its political priorities.
In his new book, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, reveals that in 2018 the US government proposed a pact to the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
According to information from Reforma, Kushner assures that he himself, along with former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, offered such a pact to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, at a private dinner in Washington.
“Our relationship (with the AMLO government) is going to be very simple… Pay attention to this data (of illegal crossings). If they go up, we’re going to have problems. If they go down, they will have an incredible partner here (in the U.S.) who will help them with whatever priority they have,” Pompeo told Ebrard at the dinner, Kushner quoted.
Photo: Cuartoscuro
Mexico agrees to stop migration
In addition, according to the book, López Obrador agreed to the pact after Kushner warned him at a dinner on March 19, 2019, that Trump could retaliate.
“I made a 12-hour trip to Mexico City to give my message directly to AMLO: if Mexico didn’t act immediately to reduce illegal border crossings, all bets were canceled, including the USMCA,” Kushner says.
However, arrests at the border peaked monthly in May with more than 133,000 migrants detained, after which Trump decided to announce on Twitter at the end of May that he would implement tariffs on Mexican imports.
Marcelo Ebrard is said to have returned to Washington to explain the measures Mexico would take to contain irregular migration and stop the threat of tariffs, including the deployment of more than 25,000 military personnel.
“Your trick worked, I said (to Trump). The Chancellor showed me his letters. Mexico will bend,” Kushner writes.
Photo: Cuartoscuro
Read: Marcelo Ebrard rules out Mexico leaving the USMCA due to differences with the US on energy policies
“They proposed to invade Mexico”: Trump
According to the book, months after he avoided the tariff crisis in June 2019, Kushner recalls another trip by Marcelo Ebrard to Washington in September, whose central objective was to present Trump with the results of the strengthening of Mexican immigration control.
At the meeting, former President Trump began the conversation by saying that that same morning he had fired John Bolton from his position as National Security Advisor of the White House, for joking when he suggested invading Mexico as a response to the migration crisis.
“Trump paused and looked directly at Ebrard: ‘This morning, John came to my office and said, ‘We have to invade Mexico; they’re not doing enough at the southern border,’ and I said, ‘John, that’s too much. That’s the last straw. I would never do that to my friend AMLO or to the great people of Mexico. You’re fired,'” Kushner says of the Sept. 10 meeting.
“Ebrard was dumbfounded. But when he saw me laughing at the joke, he smiled and relaxed,” Kushner says.
Photo: Cuartoscuro
Arrests against migrants
Following meetings between the two administrations, the U.S. Border Patrol reported that arrests of migrants at the border with Mexico had dropped dramatically to a total of 40,000, after reaching a monthly record of 133,000 apprehensions in May.
However, in October 2019, a book by journalists from The Washington Post had revealed that since November 2018, Ebrard held secret meetings in Houston with the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, to accept the “Stay in Mexico” migrant return program.
Kushner’s book, Breaking History: Memoirs of the White House, is scheduled to be released in English on Aug. 23 under the Broadside Books imprint.
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