Trump or Tillerson: Who speaks for America?
Tillerson backs alliance with Latin American tour, while Trump calls for border controls
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were both addressing drug smuggling and immigration across the southern US border. But their stark difference in tone during separate Friday meetings underlined a divide that has some asking: “Who speaks for America?”
Trump was in Virginia, meeting border protection officers and calling for harsher measures to deal with those “pouring in from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, all over.”
Tillerson was on the Mexican leg of a Latin American tour, talking to local officials about a shared effort to combat international organised crime on both sides of the border. At the Border Patrol National Targeting Center, Trump also heard about US efforts to partner with Latin American countries to stem the flow of drugs and illegal migrants.
But his response was scathing: “And what are Mexico and Colombia and these other countries — what are they doing about it? Nothing? Do you think they’re really trying?”
Trump claimed that the US was spending billions of dollars in aid to partner countries “and they’re pouring drugs into our country and they’re laughing at us”.
And he explicitly linked the threat of drug gangs in America to migration from south of the border, underlining that this is the reason he is seeking to reform immigration law.
The night before Trump’s latest outburst, Tillerson had dined in Mexico City with his Mexican counterpart Luis Videgaray and senior Mexican military and intelligence leaders. And, as Trump was speaking, he was following up with three-way talks with Mexico and Canada on crossborder trade and law enforcement and hearing concerns about immigration rules.
Columnists have started to suggest the US has two policies, Trump’s “America First” versus Tillerson and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis’ cultivation of alliances.