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Opinion: Secure the Border & Encourage Cooperation

border
Mexico-U.S. border | Image by EFDN

In response to the recent killing and kidnapping of U.S. citizens, many warmongers are rallying behind calls for military action, bombings, and war in Mexico. The situation on our border is dire, but war with our neighbors in Mexico is the last direction we should go. The horrors and the unknown consequences of war are always underestimated, while severe economic pressure accomplishes our objective of incentivizing Mexico to secure its border.

America does not like to refer to other countries, even during protracted conflict, as “enemies.” The closest we come to this designation is our Congressional declaration of war, which by my count has only occurred eleven times in history, the last being June 3, 1942, when President Roosevelt pursued peace-by-other-means on the remaining Axis powers.

Conversely, a foreign policy that balks from classifications, even when the threat to American security is grave, is no policy at all. This is how we have historically slept-walked into open, hot wars. And this is precisely what’s at risk if we fail to define our relationship with Mexico, especially when it comes to border security.

Today, no one, even those friends most partial to our southern neighbor, denies we have a crisis along the 1,951-mile U.S.-Mexican border. Illegal crossings at historical highs and cartel-backed drug routes have precipitated a fentanyl epidemic throughout America. The Mexican government, for its part, is compromised by the very forces of evil they were elected to combat. Let me put a fine point on this: Over the last few decades, Mexico has done more to consistently undermine American sovereignty than any of our “enemies,” such as China, Russia, and North Korea. And the sad fact of the matter is that if Mexico wanted to stop the crisis at the border, they would.

We have, then, what sensible people would call an enemy at the border. But in fairness to the Mexican government, the greatest enemy to change has been our own leadership. Decades of federal inactivity and refusal to apply economic pressure on Mexico to change its behavior has allowed this situation to blossom in all its nastiness. And so, as in many cases, if Washington refuses to do the work, it is up to the states.

For decades, Mexico has had no incentive to secure its border, as it functions as a relief valve for unemployed labor, remitting billions of dollars back into Mexico. Additionally, the open Texas Border generations vast amounts of wealth from drugs and human smuggling, only furthering the incentive for Mexico to leave the border unsecured.

Economic pressure is the only border security tactic that has successfully compelled the Mexican government to secure its border. When then-President Donald Trump floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports, we witnessed — miraculously — a tightening of the border. States like Texas have similar leverage. There are two simple options that our representatives in Austin should feel comfortable in pursuing.

First things first: Stop, search, and, if necessary, seize all inbound trucks, airliners, and other shipments transiting the US-Mexico border into Texas and subject them to intensive searches lasting an indeterminate number of days. The State of Texas reserves the right to inspect these shipments for illicit materials and proper paperwork. A stepped-up, strategic campaign would be immediately felt.

Second, actively discourage tourism in Mexico by employing the state’s regulatory powers and advertising budget. The State of Texas should initiate a massive advertising campaign based on the U.S. State Department’s travel warnings about Mexico, which will discourage Americans from traveling to Mexico. While dire, the U.S. State Department’s warnings are ignored by most media. The goal is obvious: put secure economic pressure on the Mexican economy until they become a good neighbor.

Neither of these solutions is difficult to enact. Both are what we would call “soft diplomacy” but make clear, if naming is too uncomfortable, our opinion of the Mexican government’s complicit role in many of our problems.

Due to economic pressure, Mexico is likely to comply in assisting further border security efforts. The United Mexican States has too much to gain and too much to lose by not helping the United States or the State of Texas with greater border security. Whether the recent events or more historical ones, the history of U.S.-Mexico relations is a story of mutual assistance and compromise, not heated conflict. If we take the appropriate steps now, we can keep it this way.

Don Huffines is a former state senator from Texas.

This piece originally appeared in RealClearPolicy. It is republished here with permission from the Huffines Liberty Foundation.

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7 Comments

  1. Tom Milbank

    I really enjoy reading The Dallas Express, I wish more papers were as honest. In the past 4 months I’ve seen a marked difference in the paper. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up. My best, Tom M.

    Reply
  2. Bret

    These ideas have worked in the past and will work again. The problem now is this administration and all democrats. None of this will happen until the democrats are removed from the place of authority. We also hear a lot of talk from Abbott, but then nothing happens.

    Reply
  3. Robert Weir

    I disagree with Mr. Huffines. We’ve had too much diplomacy with a neighbor that seems to enjoy our national agony. It’s well known that the Mexican government is totally corrupted by the powerful drug cartels, which have assassinated judges and other leaders who defied them. The drugs coming across our southern border kill more Americans annually than were killed in the entire decade-long Vietnam War.
    While we fight a proxy war for Ukraine, against Russia’s invasion of THEIR border, our border invasion is given lip service. Any country that allows its citizens to be slaughtered by a foreign country with impunity is a country in decline. Drugs, including the extremely lethal fentanyl, and the scourge of human trafficking that has spread through our country like a pandemic, is an existential threat which will ultimately destroy us from within.
    Diplomacy hasn’t worked; economic pressure hasn’t worked; nor has published figures of the massive death toll worked. The only sensible solution is military force! Our intelligence agencies know where the cartels are located and how to carpet bomb them out of business. Refusal to do so smacks of corruption between the 2 governments. Is there so much money involved that everyone can be bought?
    How many more thousands of Americans must die before we strike back at the killing machine across the border that has relentlessly pursued its pernicious goals? The refusal to even mention military action against this organized mob of killers only makes them bolder. Mr. Huffines lays out all the feckless remedies of the past, while Americans continue to be slaughtered. It’s time to make it clear to the Mexican government, and their accomplices in the drug cartels, that we are not the paper tiger that they seem to think we are. Let them hear the words of President Kennedy at his inauguration: “Those who ride the back of the tiger, end up inside.” 

    Reply
    • R Reason

      Don’t worry, that’s just a sanitized version of the Huffine plan; you two are closer on the issues than you think…sorry to say.

      Reply
  4. Betsy Whitfill

    I wonder what, if anything, Mexico’s condition as a narco state has to do with enlisting cooperation with the US. Narco gangs own the govt. and are flourishing due to the American drug addiction, the open border and Mexico’s govt’s collusion.

    Reply
  5. Jay

    How dumb do you have to be to think that the U.S, would go to war with Mexico? The U.S. illegally attacked Mexico over the Alamo. The recent deaths in Mexico are a repeat of the Alamo, send U.S. citizens into Mexican terrority thinking that they are safe from Mexican politics. Then when those U.S. citizens are mistreated or killed the U.S. thinks it has something to say about it. The Mexicans did not come on U.S. soil to harm the U.S. It is always the U.S. that steals from Mexico. Everytime the U.S. attacks another country we have to spend billions repairing what the U.S, destroyed. How about spending those billions assisting Americans so they do not have to go to Mexico to afford medical treatment.

    Reply
  6. R Reason

    Just realized, my floors are dirty.

    Reply

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