Twitter Diplomacy
Donald Trump has been a vocal and outspoken critic of United States Immigration policy even before he took office in January of 2017. Three main items on Donald Trump’s agenda have been the wall, the ban on predominantly Muslim refugees, and the reversal of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. All these actions have been extremely controversial, and have shifted the image of the United States in the world. The use of twitter by our current president has only fueled tensions and created a further divide on the issue of immigration policy, while simultaneously using immigrants as scapegoats, often times justifying White Supremacist groups to use intimidation and terror as an acceptable platform for expression, as shown in the Charlottesville White terror events.
In the summer of 2015 when Donald Trump announced his campaign for presidency, he made a complete racist and stereotypical remark about our southern neighbors saying “They are not our friend, believe me,” he said, before disparaging Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” It was clear even before his presidential campaign and presidency that Donald Trump was anti-immigrant. The use of twitter, and his impressive following has allowed Donald Trump to have his rhetoric heard and seen by millions of people. Nevertheless, Trump’s xenophobic rants have turned into more concrete policy affecting predominantly immigrants of color through his ban on people coming into the country from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen., and his tightening restrictions H-1B Visa Program in which only the highest skilled and paying workers who would receive work visas.
Donald Trump has repeatedly implemented Pathos in his argument to justify him scapegoating immigrants for internal problems in the United States. He appeals to middle class White Americans, using the motto “Make America Great Again” to envision a normative conventional American society freed from the evils outside our borders. His motto to “Put America First” has encroached into economic, social, and institutional policy, often times reversing much of any Obama-era progress made. Through his tweets, and mega online presence, Donald Trump has effectively carried out immigration policy.
Six days after taking office, President Donald Trump faced the first international crisis of his administration, and it unfolded on Twitter. On social media, President Trump has always insisted Mexico would pay for The Wall. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and former president Vicente Fox, have been equally insistent Mexico will not. Trump claims the total cost of The Wall will be around $10bn to $12bn. But, the report, prepared by the Democratic staff of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, stated that the border wall could cost nearly $21.6bn, not including maintenance. Enacting on his campaign promises and tweets, for immigration reforms, Trump signed executive orders to begin the construction of a border wall with Mexico and block federal grants for sanctuary cities, which areas that offer safety for undocumented immigrants. After signing the orders, Trump justified spending this US taxpayer money on The Wall, by insisting that Mexico would pay for these construction expenses “at a later date.” “A nation without borders is not a nation,” Trump said. “Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders.”
Tweet Translation: I repeat what I said personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico would never pay for that wall
Social media platforms, especially Twitter, are alight in response in Mexico. Denise Dresser, a professor and political analyst in Mexico, stated that although Donald Trump’s presidency may last two terms, Mexico has existed for thousands of years. The historian Rafael Estrada Michel has asked Mexico to renegotiate not NAFTA but the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty, which established the current border after the Mexican-American war. If US-Mexico relations continue on like this, Mexicans will be left without their largest trade partner and the US without their third largest partner. Mexico will have to entirely change its global alliances and economic structure. Although, Mexico has repeatedly refused to pay for Trump’s Wall, President Trump continues to tell his supporters, the wall is still being paid for by Mexico.
If the Trump administration continues with its proposed plan to build the wall and fund it by imposing a 20% tax on Mexican imports, Peña Nieto’s government has expressed options for retaliation. It could implement a crackdown on American citizens in Mexico, many of them retirees, who overstay their tourist visas in Mexico, or impose reciprocal tariffs on American exports. As Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso stated, “You don’t ask your neighbor to pay for your home’s wall.” Recently, Mexico has repeatedly insisted it will not pay for the wall, a signature Trump campaign promise and rallying call. During a campaign rally in Arizona, Trump threatened a government shutdown, if Congress did not allocate taxpayer funding for the wall, essentially acknowledging that Mexico will not pay for it.
Immigration, as already noted both throughout this post and previous blogs, has been a defining factor in the Mexican-United States relationship. Indubitably a defining factor in President Donald Trump’s election, it has also been a topic he has consistently tweeted about since (and prior to) announcing he would run for office, and this has not changed in the first 10 months of his presidency. While the wall has been a prominent feature of rhetoric throughout this period, aligned with the notion of reducing undocumented immigration, there have also been other elements existent, being additional prominent features (although not as large as the concept of the wall) in his campaign, or even unintended consequences of the President's actions; his reform to ‘legal immigration’, and what is now being labeled as the “Trump Effect’, are two of these notions.
‘Legal immigration’, in hand with undocumented immigration, has been a major target of the Trump administration – both in monitoring it, and essentially redefining it. Supporting a bill that will cut legal immigration in half, President Trump has argued through twitter and other means that these new “merit based” rules for immigration – which include preference for those able to speak English and high education level – will “protect US workers and taxpayers”, as well as reduce poverty and reduce wages. However, while on face these reforms may sound to have some type of value, they have the potential to be detrimental to all types of domestic and international politics - in addition to interior problems, such as the fact immigrants make up approximately half of U.S. population growth in an ageing population, international consequences include the separating of families between nations, and a further widening in the political rift between the United States and Mexico, and other nations which these policies clearly target. President Trump’s rhetoric through means such as twitter, inclusive even of the perhaps more innocent example below, which subtly suggests that current immigrants are inherently a threat to the American citizens, exacerbate this, leading both American citizens, and the rest of the world, to see two side; America, and the other.
The ‘Trump effect’, often claimed as a victory by the current administration (as seen below), is the notion that illegal immigration into the United States, and even a back peddling of undocumented immigrants, has been reduced simply as a result of Donald Trump’s election as president. Traceable back perhaps to President Trump’s rhetoric in itself, made easily accessible to the international community through means such as twitter, this idea can be backed, at least on initial reports, by sources in both the United States and Mexico, which show crossing of the United States southern border lowering, cross of the Mexican southern border lowering, and applications for asylum in Mexico rising significantly.
In addition to the international relations crisis that erupted between Mexico and the United States in early 2017, which was driven by immigration based policy and his twitter use in relation to it, President Trump’s social media use and action towards Muslim migrants has caused controversy, international relations consequences, and, perhaps most of all, affected every day people – the often forgotten about extra element of international politics. On a global scale, Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the wall has caused protests all around the world, but particularly in Mexico City, Mexico. On February 12 of 2017, 20,000 protesters gathered, holding effigies of Donald Trump and waving Mexican flags. In London, demonstrators gathered outside of the United States embassy shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump, shouting “Dump Trump!” and other similar sentiments. Regardless of these protests by the international community, few world leaders have actually ceased cooperating with the United States, causing extreme concern for the international community as these international leaders are expected to speak out when certain values are disregarded in the political sphere.
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I think his tweets geared towards Mexico have been felt throughout Latin America, and he has not only tried to get rid of all relations with Mexico, but he also reversed the progress Obama made with Cuba, pulling Americans from the Cuban Embassy, claiming that here was an attack, something you guys might want to look into!
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ReplyDeletePresident Trump is the first president I saw use the social media to show his personal attitude. The advantage is I can learn the new policy of the US faster than before, but the disadvantage is I have to face his personal attitude. As for an international student, I am interesting his tweets, because our president did not use any social media. When he visited in China, I saw a lot of good news about US relationship with China from his tweets, and how friendly talk between he and president Xi in Beijing.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminded me of the type of language our president uses. I can't get past the fact that Trump uses such immature language and on top of that attacks other countries by calling their citizens names like "rapists and criminals". He's ruining relationships with countries that the U.S has traded with along with creating a false narrative of the Latinx community as a whole.
ReplyDeleteGreat engagement with the post!
ReplyDelete