The Bad Neighbor Policy: Playing Americans for Fools

The Bad Neighbor Policy: Playing Americans for Fools

By Nest Gingrich

Guatemala and Mexico agreed this week to make it even easier for people to show up at the American border. 

That’s right: EASIER.

After all the public outcry against thousands of foreigners crossing our border, you might have thought the Mexican government would help stop the wave of people traversing Mexico to get to Texas. That would be a good neighbor policy.

On Monday, however, the presidents of Guatemala and Mexico met to announce a new policy of making it easier and more orderly for citizens of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras to travel through Mexico to the United States. This “Safe Passage” program will create a 72 hour window for Central Americans to transit Mexico to try to get into the United States. This is clearly a bad neighbor policy. 

It is hard for most Americans to understand how the president of a country can openly encourage people to flee his country and try to move into another country. For most nations that would be a sign of enormous failure. The president of Guatemala, however, seems eager to facilitate the thousands of people fleeing his country.

On June 20, Vice President Biden visited Guatemala and warned the Guatemalan president that the U.S. would enforce deportation of Guatemalans who sought to enter this country.

Biden was apparently as believable in Guatemala as Obama has been in Syria, Iraq, Crimea, Ukraine and a dozen other foreign policy failures. 

The contempt foreign governments display toward the Obama administration (and therefore toward the United States) is breathtaking.

This week, of course, President Obama was busy shooting pool, ordering pizza, and shaking hands with a man in a horse mask. How could we ask him to pay attention to the alliance of Guatemala and Mexico against the United States?

The flood of foreigners is going to accelerate.

The costs are going to rise dramatically.

The contempt for the Obama administration is going to continue to grow.

This is a recipe for disaster.