Will Andrés Manuel López Obrador Work With Trump On Immigration, NAFTA?

President Donald Trump congratulated Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on winning the presidential race of Mexico on Sunday. But will López Obrador's win improve U.S.-Mexico relations that have soured over the recent years?

"Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on becoming the next President of Mexico. I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!" Trump tweeted.

Despite his willingness to work with AMLO, there are a number of issues that Trump and the new Mexican president disagree upon, primarily POTUS’ “zero tolerance” policy on immigration, and his recently amended policy of separating children from their immigrant parents at the U.S.–Mexican border.

López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, visited the U.S. after Trump was elected in order to advocate for people from his country who have migrated over to the U.S.

He has also written a book called "Oye, Trump" (Which translates to "Listen Up, Trump" in English) where he did not hold back from heavily criticizing the president’s “attempts to persecute migrant workers” and his promises to build a border wall to keep illegal immigrants from entering the U.S.

He also branded Trump “oppressive, racist and inhumane” for breaking up migrant families.

One of the campaign promises López Obrador laid out in front of his supporters was to prevent his homeland from becoming “the piñata of any foreign government.” Additionally, he pledged to stand up to any “repressive” immigration policies if he becomes the president of Mexico.

“With the triumph of our movement, we’ll defend migrants from Central America, Mexico and from all over the continent … it’s a human right we will champion,” he told a crowd in the Culiacán state this month.

In 2017, Border Patrol agents arrested 303,916 migrants who were trying to enter the U.S. Out of them, 162,891 people were reportedly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

However, this does not mean, López Obrador has not taken a leaf out of Trump’s “America First” rulebook. His candidacy was hailed in his country as “Mexico’s response” to Trump’s protectionist policies in the sense that he has been recognized as an “economic nationalist” who plans to “untether Mexico from U.S. agricultural imports and promised the creation of oil refineries.”

“The main threat of protectionism still comes from the United States,” Shannon K. O’Neil, Mexico expert at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, told Newsweek. “AMLO’s government may help some of his supporters and constituencies through subsidies and protections. He has talked of promoting both food and energy sufficiency through supports for small farmers and by building refineries in Mexico. This could affect U.S. agriculture and southern U.S. refineries.”

“AMLO talks about producing food, gasoline and automobiles in Mexico. He wants to bring much more production back to Mexico, which is very similar to Donald Trump’s rhetoric. He has been criticized for having authoritarian tendencies he doesn’t like people to disagree with him, so that’s another thing he has in common with Donald Trump,” Duncan Wood, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center Mexico Institute, added.

However, both the leaders only caring about their own country’s interest might not be the best decision for either neighbor, Angel Ávila, spokesperson for Ricardo Anaya’s For Mexico to the Front coalition, pointed out.

“We must forge meetings with U.S. business people who benefit from this treaty, mainly farmers and those who work in the automotive industry, that way they can pressure the president and members of Congress to ratify NAFTA,” Ávila said referring to NAFTA negotiations. “It’ll be a disaster for Mexico and the U.S. if there is no solution because many jobs would be at stake.”

A silver lining is the fact that despite his harsh rhetoric against Trump, AMLO is open to working with POTUS on an extensive project that would boost relationships between North America and Central American countries. Both leaders have shown interest in coming up with terms for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that lead to more job creation in Mexico and that drive down illegal migration and cross-border violence.

“A door opens for opportunity with Andrés Manuel,” Marcos Fastlicht, a Mexican businessman and longtime friend of AMLO told Politico. “He’s willing to speak with [Trump], willing to sit and negotiate, but part of this requires we wait and see.”