Drug, security co-operation to be canceled if Trump pushes trade terms

If U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to impose unfavourable terms of trade, Mexico may retaliate by ceasing to co-operate on drug enforcement, migration control, security and intelligence, a Mexican cabinet minister told The Globe and Mail in one of his government's most explicit warnings to date in the rhetorical battle with the new U.S. administration.

"There is so much at stake for the interest of the U.S. as a country," Mexico's economy minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in an interview in his office in the country's capital. "We have been a great ally to fight problems with migration, narcotics ... If at some point in time things become so badly managed in the relationship, the incentives for the Mexican people to keep on co-operating in things that are at the heart of [U.S.] national-security issues will be diminished.

"You cannot ask me to [accept poor] conditions in terms of trade and then request my help to manage migration issues from other nations or ... the prosecution of criminal activities and narcotics."

Contrary to Mr. Trump's frequent assertions about Mexicans pouring over the border into the U.S., the net flow of Mexicans has been from the U.S. into Mexico for several years.

However Mexico has for the past three years been providing a sort of outsourced border control service, 3,000 km to the south, called Programa Frontera Sur. The U.S. has given Mexico more than $86-million (U.S.) in equipment and training to set up a sort of dragnet across the southern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz to stop migrants fleeing violence in Central America. In addition, Mexico has been growing in popularity in recent years as a route for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa headed for the U.S.

Mexico detained 330,000 Central Americans in the last two years.

"Right now there are many more Mexicans coming back than there are leaving and the great challenge is the flows of every other nationality coming through Mexico," Mr. Guajardo said.

Frontera Sur has been criticized by Mexican human rights organizations because it has little or no security benefit for Mexico, and contravenes obligations Mexico has as a signatory to international convention on the rights of migrants and refugees.