Mexico's a Great Neighbor, but We Could Turn It into a Bad One

Andres Martinez wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about Mexico:

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was a no-show at the White House today. Late last week he scratched his scheduled visit to Washington, D.C., resigned to the fact that President Trump is in no mood to engage with any Mexico other than the one he’s created in his imagination.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump spun a dystopian, fictitious narrative of Mexicans and Mexico as villainous obstacles to American greatness. It took only a few days for Trump once in office to create the deepest crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations in decades, by reaffirming his intention to build a border wall (paid for by you know who), step up deportations of workers in this country illegally, and scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement. If it’s possible to breach diplomatic treaty obligations via Twitter, Trump has been busy doing so, browbeating and bullying U.S. companies investing in Mexico, and threatening to impose unilateral import tariffs.