US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6947

Mexico has indicated it would not accept the Trump administration’s new US immigration proposals, saying it would go to the United Nations to defend the rights of immigrants in the US.

Luis Videgaray, Mexico’s foreign minister, was responding to Donald Trump’s plans to enforce immigration rules more vigorously against undocumented migrants, which could lead to mass deportations to Mexico, not just of Mexicans but also citizens of other Latin American countries.

“We are not going to accept it because we don’t have to accept it,” Videgaray said, according to the Reforma newspaper. “I want to make clear, in the most emphatic way, that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept measures that one government wants to unilaterally impose on another.”

The sweeping measures were announced in Washington on the eve of a visit to Mexico by the US secretaries of state and homeland security that had been aimed at salvaging bilateral relations, currently at their lowest point in at least three decades.

Rex Tillerson and John Kelly are seeking to soothe Mexican fears in the wake of Trump’s new executive orders, the construction of a border wall that he insists Mexico be made to pay for, and his threat to unpick the 1994 Nafta free trade agreement that underpins the Mexican economy.

On Thursday, the two men, a former oil executive and a retired general, will meet the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who abruptly cancelled a trip to Washington at the end of January after Trump sent out a tweet suggesting it was better not to come “if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall”.

Since then, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and closest foreign policy adviser, has reportedly worked behind the scenes to limit the damage, helping broker a placatory phone conversation between the presidents on 27 January, and attending a meeting on 8 February in Washington between Tillerson and his Mexican counterpart, Videgaray, according to the Washington Post.

Kushner and Videgaray, who is Peña Nieto’s closest political adviser, were introduced by mutual friends in the business world, and their personal relationship has helped prevent an escalating war of words between the two capitals, diplomats said.

Videgaray has placed high stakes on the visit. “This is a moment of definition: the decisions we make in the coming months will determine how Mexico and the United States coexist for the next decades,” he was quoted as saying at the G20 meeting in Bonn last week by the Los Angeles Times.

But Mexican observers worry that the relationship with Kushner, who is 36 years old and has no previous foreign policy experience, is a thin reed on which to try to rebuild a profoundly damaged bilateral relationship.

“I don’t know if there is a strategy and if there is a strategy, the strategy is a person,” said Carlos Heredia, professor at the Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City.

The US state department referred questions about Kushner’s role to the White House, which did not respond.

On February 23 2017 05:22 LegalLord wrote:
The president of Ukraine has a short lifespan anyways. At this point it's only a matter of time before he is removed from office.

On February 23 2017 05:33 LegalLord wrote:

Will the same standard hold for equivalent offenses within the Trump administration? Like the leakers opposing him?

A majority of voters disapprove of Donald Trump’s handling of the presidency, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Less than five weeks into his presidency, Trump has an approval rating of 38 percent and a disapproval rating of 55 percent.

Trump’s approval is a slight uptick from where he stood in Quinnipiac’s Jan. 26 survey but 4 points lower than just two weeks ago. Meantime, his disapproval rating has steadily climbed, from 44 percent days after he took office to 51 percent on Feb. 7 and 55 percent Wednesday.

A majority of respondents said Trump is not honest (55 percent), doesn’t have good leadership skills (55 percent) or care about everyday Americans (53 percent), isn’t level-headed (63 percent), doesn’t share their values (60 percent) and is doing more to divide the country than unite it (58 percent). However, a majority also said they believe Trump is a strong (64 percent) and intelligent (58 percent) person.

“President Donald Trump’s popularity is sinking like a rock,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. “He gets slammed on honesty, empathy, level-headedness and the ability to unite. And two of his strong points, leadership and intelligence, are sinking to new lows. This is a terrible survey one month in.”

Congress doesn’t fare any better. Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers in Congress, have a 31 percent approval rating and 62 percent disapproval rating. And Democrats’ approval rating is 32 percent, while their disapproval rating is 59 percent.

Half of the respondents disapprove of the media’s coverage of Trump, but more than 6 in 10 disapprove of how the president responds. Sixty-one percent said they disapprove of the way Trump talks about the news media, which he tweeted last week is “the enemy of the American People!”

Despite Trump’s critical review of the press, which he repeatedly assails as “dishonest” and calls “fake news,” voters trust the media more than Trump. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they trust the media to tell the truth about important issues, while just 37 percent said the same of the president.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to bring much-needed change to Washington, but, according to 45 percent of respondents, he’s bringing the wrong change. Nearly 40 percent dispute that, though, insisting that Trump is bringing the right change, while 14 percent said Trump hasn’t brought much change at all.

One segment of voters is largely split on how often they can trust Trump to do the right thing: Eighteen percent say almost all the time, 20 percent most of the time and 21 percent some of the time. A whopping 40 percent, however, said they can hardly ever trust the president to do what’s right.

And while Trump gets warm marks on his handling of the economy, he faces high disapproval on foreign policy (56 percent), terrorism (49 percent), immigration (58 percent), Russia (57 percent), his currently blocked executive order travel ban — 53 percent oppose suspending travel from the seven predominantly Muslim nations and 60 percent oppose halting the entry of refugees (68 percent for Syrian refugees, specifically).

But, according to Trump, who has said he inherited a mess from former President Barack Obama, voters should cut him slack because the country’s woes aren’t his fault.

“In all fairness,” Trump told reporters earlier Wednesday, “I’ve only been here for four weeks, so I can’t take too much of the blame for what’s happened.”

On February 23 2017 05:44 LegalLord wrote:

Well the point in question was about having a compromising document on the president and leveraging it for political gain. An act that is commonly justified in the name of Trump being so bad.

On February 23 2017 05:44 LegalLord wrote:

Well the point in question was about having a compromising document on the president and leveraging it for political gain. An act that is commonly justified in the name of Trump being so bad.

On February 23 2017 06:01 Danglars wrote:

Mexico goes to UN to protest the US enforcing its own immigration laws? Hilarious, ineffective, and pathetic all in one. It's like the actual plan is to diminish the UN's waning influence.

On February 23 2017 06:01 Danglars wrote:

Mexico goes to UN to protest the US enforcing its own immigration laws? Hilarious, ineffective, and pathetic all in one. It's like the actual plan is to diminish the UN's waning influence.

On February 23 2017 06:05 KwarK wrote:

The US does not have the right to ship people into another country. Sovereignty ends at the border. The US can do what it pleases within the US but it cannot force Mexico to accept people it does not wish to. If you're still failing to understand this then consider the situation reversed, Mexico insisting that the US allow Brazilians to enter the US without visas.

On February 23 2017 06:11 Archeon wrote:
Going to the UN to protect people against the USA gotta be the dumbest thing I've heard in a while. I thought most top politicians understood politics. If that plan doesn't work try asking Great Britain next?

Btw am I the only one who is surprised most people don't think Trump is honest but do think he's intelligent? I mean the man basically tried to fulfill half of his campaign pledges within the first month, showing many times that the people who believed he was exaggerating because he "couldn't be possibly stupid enough to mean this" were wrong.