‘Canadians proper now have to have a look at the chances,’ my information tells me. ‘Put money into Mexico, attempt to work with Latin American international locations’
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MEXICO CITY — Touchdown within the coronary heart of Mexico in late January, within the throes of U.S. President Donald Trump’s muddled launch of a commerce battle with America’s neighbours, has been deeply unsettling. On the streets of Mexico Metropolis, the sense of foreboding is palpable.
Trump has set in movement a brand new sort of sport that up-ends free commerce in North America and destroys the 90 years of commerce agreements since U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King signed off on a reciprocal commerce settlement in 1935. Mexicans and Canadians are united in the necessity to make sense of the Trump 2.0 agenda.
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“I do know Mexico will survive,” Victor Zenteno, our native information assures me, his voice defiant and assured. “I don’t know if we’re extra ready (than Canada),” he admits, “however I do know we’ll survive as a result of Mexico is a resilient nation.
“After a whole lot of years of preventing with Spaniards, a whole lot of years preventing with ourselves, the American invasion, the French invasion,” Victor explains, adopted extra lately by “the financial disaster of ’88, the financial disaster of ’94, the financial disaster of 2008, and the disaster created due to the earthquake of ’85, the disaster created due to the earthquake of 2017 and the disaster created due to Hurricane Otis,” he’s satisfied his nation can face up to this new disaster.
Over the course of per week collectively, I’ve had a number of chats with Victor, the affable native chef from Mexico Metropolis who’s guiding our tour. His mom lived in Edmonton for a number of years, giving Victor, now 48, some perception into how Canadians are wired — although he’d forgotten, and chuckled at remembering, it’s the pursuit of “peace, order and good authorities” that stiffens the backbone of Canada as a nation.
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For a second, we ponder, “what sort of sport is Trump taking part in?” However not even our American buddies can clarify. The specter of heavy tariffs could possibly be a blunt negotiation by a transactional president to extract concessions from buying and selling companions or worse, a blatant pursuit of Manifest Future.
Whereas in Mexico Metropolis, I attempt to meet with Canadian diplomats and companies to debate the implications of Trump’s “America First” mandate — specifically, Canada’s newly appointed ambassador to Mexico, Cameron MacKay, and company decision-makers invested in tasks that span the continent.
However many right here nonetheless maintain their playing cards near the chest. They may await the directives of political leaders — Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum — each of whom have promised retaliatory tariffs reflecting their very own model of nationalism. In Canada, “Purchase Canadian” is the brand new rallying cry and provincial premiers are threatening unilateral motion, for instance, eradicating American liquor from retailer cabinets or focusing on particular person U.S. states that voted Republican.
After the folly of almost 10 years of virtue-signalling politics on the federal stage, we’re determining once more what it means to be a Canadian, I clarify to Victor. Maybe it’s handy nationalism within the time of disaster, however hopefully it’s enduring. In an odd manner, the nation may thrive by pulling collectively and collapsing provincial commerce restrictions that get in the best way of our future.
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Nationalism in Mexico appears extra deeply rooted, I observe. “We reside with disaster and we reside with laughter,” Victor displays. And he provides, Mexicans know learn how to reside with ambiguity. “You don’t want to face up and battle,” he says, “you simply have to make some adjustments.” For instance, he chuckles, perhaps we don’t promote to China instantly; we will simply let China proceed to put money into Mexico.
Plus, there are almost 40 million individuals of Mexican descent dwelling in the USA proper now and Mexicans will stick collectively. “We will collapse the American financial system as a result of we’re like 30 to 40 million individuals,” he claims, with eyebrows arching, “that’s 10 per cent of the financial system over there in America.”
Canadians have choices too, Victor suggests. Create a tech fund; go to the USA and seize all of the good individuals who wish to depart and convey them to Canada and increase, you have got a brand new expertise dream group. “Canadians proper now have to have a look at the chances,” Victor reiterates, “Put money into Mexico, attempt to work with Latin American international locations. There are different markets in Asia.”
In lots of conversations with locals in Mexico over the previous week, I’ve heard echoes of this similar bravado. In a three-hour trek to go to the tiny village of El Rosario, website of a wondrous monarch butterfly sanctuary, I requested Carlos, our native information, what he anticipated Mexicans would do if Trump made good on his menace to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on exports to America. The assuredness, and bluntness, of his reply stunned me.
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“We reside in a multipolar world now,” he said. “I drive a VW automobile manufactured in India,” and the engine oil he makes use of is imported from Russia. “I don’t have any drawback saying goodbye to American items; Mexico can look to BRIC international locations for funding.”
Carlos wasn’t belligerent, he was a realist; if relationships with the U.S. change into too onerous, he was assured Mexico had a Plan B. I questioned what number of Canadians would converse so resolutely of our nation’s choices. On the morning on Feb. 1 — the day Trump’s tariff menace landed with a thud in Mexico and Canada — a well-dressed man within the lineup to a celebrated breakfast place in Mexico Metropolis baited me with questions on Trudeau. “Are you rid of your prime minister but?” he snickered. After I inquired how his political leaders deliberate to retaliate, he assured me his nation was nicely ready.
“Mexico is not going to be a transit level for illegals being deported from America,” he declared, “and our President Claudia Sheinbaum isn’t any slouch.” However he acknowledged it wouldn’t be simple. “Trump’s a sensible enterprise man, however he’s noisy,” he stated, snapping his fingers and thumb collectively uncomfortably close to my face, to imitate a mouth speaking.
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Nationwide delight is usually a good factor. I’m sufficiently old to recollect the Nineteen Seventies, a time when nationwide delight was sparked by a hockey match between the Soviets and Canada’s best-of-the-best NHLers. It’s heartening to see patriotism being revived in Canada. And we might actually be taught a factor or two about nationwide delight from the Mexicans.
Strolling via the stalls upon stalls of recent greens at Mexico Metropolis’s largest meals market, an aged tomato vendor mistook me for an American. “You don’t like us anymore,” she stated in Spanish, looking at me not in anger however with a deep sense of betrayal. I rapidly assured her I used to be Canadian and shared her nervousness in regards to the new administration in Washington. We have been in the identical financial boat, I stated with a smile.
After that temporary however telling encounter, I pinned a small Canadian flag to my lapel. That’s one thing I’ve not executed because the Iraq battle. It’s a brand new, new world order.
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