Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Trump’s Visit to Mexico Was a Win-Win

ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016 Sep 09, 2016 - 05:42 AM GMT

By: John_Mauldin

ElectionOracle

BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : Since the democratic convention, Donald Trump has been behind Hillary Clinton in the polls by about five points. He has a solid base of voters (about 40%). But, he must move about 6%–7% to win the popular vote and eke out the electoral.

Trump needs a strategy that allows him to roll back his negatives a bit. He also must win over a few of those who are voting for Clinton only because she isn’t Trump. 


Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto gave Trump that chance. This was extraordinary, given what Trump has said about Mexico. 

Peña Nieto invited Trump and Clinton to meet with him in Mexico. Clinton declined; she doesn’t have a Mexico problem. For Trump, though, it offered a chance to go into hostile territory, show self-control, and shift his stance a bit.

So why would Peña Nieto offer Trump this chance? 

The president of Mexico took a calculated risk

Peña Nieto can’t run again. His favorability ratings are in the 20% range. An invitation to Trump would just create a collective rage attack in Mexico. Given all of this, why reach out to Trump? The answer might simply be statesmanship. 

If Clinton wins, Mexico’s relations with the United States stay the same. If Trump wins, relations could turn disastrous. Mexico needs the US far more than the US needs Mexico. By reaching out to Trump, Peña Nieto might be able to soften Trump’s positions and create a personal relationship. (This would be based on the assumption that Trump isn’t actually committed to the things he says.)

This meeting had the potential to anger Clinton. But since she is locked into her position on Mexico, Peña Nieto determined it didn’t matter.

Trump’s talking points

The most important thing Trump said was that he wants to renegotiate NAFTA based on current conditions. This is the position the Mexican government has adopted. 

Trump also tied the US immigration problem to Mexico’s immigration issue. Mexico has a problem with illegal immigrants from Central America. And Trump made sure to praise the contribution of legal Mexican immigrants in the United States.

Trump linked the issue of drugs coming into the US from Mexico and illegal guns moving from the US to Mexico. Private ownership of weapons is tightly controlled in Mexico. And Mexico has charged that its violence is due to the flow of illegal arms.

Trump also raised a new claim. Countries in the Western Hemisphere should face China together. He said that unfair competition from China hurts all countries in the hemisphere equally.

Trump stuck to his plan to build the wall between the US and Mexico. But he put off the question of who would pay for it.

Here’s what Trump gained from this meeting

It was a clever speech. Trump didn’t abandon any positions. He reshaped them. He said little that would cost him any of his base. He may have even changed the small percentage of minds he needs to get into the race. 

Trump showed he could be in control of his emotions for this meeting. He made (or read) a coherent speech, displaying his grasp of the issues. He even showed some subtlety.

Most people with negative views of him would not be swayed regardless of what he said or did. But the voters he was after are those who hate Clinton and plan to vote for her only because Trump seems unacceptable. For those looking for an excuse not to vote for Clinton, he did the best he could.

We won’t know if he swayed these voters until the polls metabolize this meeting and his speech on immigration. The numbers may not move, since most people are locked into their position. 

Regardless, it was a beautiful example of a zero-risk, high-reward move. If Trump ever had a chance to pull even, this was it. It may be too little, too late, but he didn’t fumble it. 

Watch George Friedman's Ground-breaking Documentary ‘Crisis & Chaos: Are We Moving Toward World War III?’

Russian adventurism. An ailing EU. Devastation in the Middle East. These are just three symptoms of a systemic instability engulfing a region that’s home to 5 billion of the planet’s 7 billion people.

In this provocative documentary from Mauldin Economics and Geopolitical Futures, George Friedman uncovers the crises convulsing Europe, the Middle East and Asia … and reveals the geopolitical chess moves that could trigger global conflict. Register for the online premiere now.

John Mauldin Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in