We are amid major changes in the global economy and the way we live our lives. Those of us that have lived through the currency devaluations of our countries or other major economic changes mostly understand what is to come. We have lived economic chaos before. Most Americans do not understand how lives will change… Read More The Age of COVID-19
It is with great sadness that I must now admit that the future is bleak with nationalism and xenophobia driving the political agendas of the major countries. Last week’s win by Boris Johnson make this crystal clear. For those that might not remember, Johnson was one of the major architects behind Brexit. His recent campaign… Read More Nationalism Is Now The Future
While most of you aren’t looking, a very telling moment in Donald Trump’s presidency is happening across the nation. There are over 40,000 auto workers on strike against General Motors. The UAW workers are on the fifth day of a national strike. As you might remember, Donald Trump promised to bring back jobs to the… Read More What Happened to the Manufacturing Jobs
Straight from a bad spy novel, several individuals led by a Mexican citizen invaded the North Korean embassy in Madrid earlier this year. According to several news media outlets, a group of men invaded the embassy and held several hostages on February 22. A U.S. arrest warrant has been issued for the alleged ringleader; a… Read More Arrest Warrant for Mexican Who Invaded North Korea
Venezuela is in turmoil. Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó has managed to get an unknown number of the Venezuelan military to back him on his quest to overthrow Nicolás Maduro. Maduro refuses to give up power leading to clashes between pro-Maduro and pro-Guaidó supporters. Like all civil wars, the situation is fluid. And like all… Read More Venezuela, the United States and the Two Faces of AMLO
Yesterday, British authorities were allowed into the Ecuadorian embassy by Ecuador and they arrested Julian Assange on an American warrant. On the surface it looks like a simple case of America violating freedom of speech by targeting Assange for his journalistic activism. Focusing on journalistic activism misses the whole point of why Assange is under… Read More The Real Problem is Julian Assange
There was contradictory news reporting over the weekend that México and the United States reached an agreement to allow asylum seekers to remain in México while their asylum request is processed by the American government. The White House says the agreement was reached, while the incoming AMLO government denied it after first confirming the report.… Read More Wait In Mexico, Not
It is now the official policy of the United States to embrace regimes that care nothing about human life or decency if they keep American workers employed. That is the clear message Donald Trump delivered on Tuesday. Everyone agrees that Jamal Khashoggi was savagely killed by the Saudi Arabian government. Rather than decry the inhumanity… Read More Atrocities Over Money
Shortly before the Midterms, Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to the border in response to the “invaders” heading to America. Many, including some Republicans, have called the military deployment a “stunt”. The so-called “invaders” – migrants in a caravan trekking through México – didn’t make it to the border until after the Midterms. Even… Read More U.S. Border Military Deployments
The last time the American government picked one country over another it resulted in the 9/11 attacks. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi is another example of America picking one country to curtail another. The Trump Administration, like its predecessors, kowtows to the Saudis. The U.S. government made the same choice in the 1980’s when it… Read More The Last Time America Picked a Side It Resulted in 9/11
I had the very unpleasant experience of spending a little less than 48 hours at the airport in Riyadh. By far, it is the worst experience I’ve experienced in any country that I have visited. As such it has surprised me over the years how Americans generally see Saudi Arabia in a different light from… Read More Saudi Arabia Is The Enemy
Looking at the aerospace industry in México yesterday, we saw how México is growing its aerospace manufacturing prowess through strategic partnerships with manufacturers. We also noted how the Mexican military has embarked on the plan to reduce its military reliance on foreign equipment. The annual budget for the Mexican defense budget is expected to continue… Read More The Mexican Military Industrial Complex
Since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, American astronauts have been at the mercy of Russian spaceships to get to the International Space Station (ISS). American astronauts (Expedition 56) Richard R. Arnold, Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor and Andrew Feustel are dependent on the Russians to return to Earth after their stint on the ISS… Read More America Has No Manned Space Capability
Many of you are aware of Oskar Schindler through the movie Schindler’s List. Schindler saved thousands of Jewish Poles from the Holocaust. However, many of you do not know about Gilberto Bosques Saldívar, who saved the lives of 40,000 individuals in World War II. Not only did Bosques, a Mexican native, save the lives of… Read More The Mexican That Saved 40 Thousand in World War 2 and Helped to Avert a Nuclear War
Donald Trump gets credit for the Korean Summit because he happens to be president when the meeting was held. That is the nature of politics, the individual at the helm of the political body gets to take credit for the activity that happens. But, and this is important, many times the activity is the result… Read More Korean Peninsula Geopolitics
It is now obvious that Donald Trump is desperately trying to use the North Korea Summit as his signature issue to recover some dignity from the disaster that is the Donald Trump administration. Putting aside the rhetoric and self-serving hyperbole there are only two things we know for sure about the summit. The first is… Read More The Korea Summit Document
In a strategy class I took years ago there was a guest lecturer who was a psychiatrist. I wasn’t looking forward to the lecture and expected it to be boring. The psychiatrist jumped into a lecture about how an individual’s point of view drives their understanding of their worldview. My first thought was, what does… Read More What North Korea Wants is Security
As the adage, says, a picture is worth one thousand words. There is one picture that started circulating across the internet that sums up the Donald Trump administration better than any words can. As you likely know, the G7, the richest seven nations in the world, held a meeting in Canada a couple of days… Read More One Picture Sums It All Up
When bringing up Mexico’s participation on the United Nations, most people assume México has a token representation at the UN. Most people are surprised to learn that México is a founding member of the United Nations charter and are even more surprised to learn that México has been deploying Mexican military personnel to UN peacekeeping… Read More Mexican Peacekeeping Forces
Part of the problem that individuals have in understanding issues like the migrant caravan transiting through México is that there are complex national idiosyncrasies at play that are sometimes in opposition to each other. The national doctrines are driven by public policy agendas and national need. Some are generational in nature and others are recent… Read More The Estrada Doctrine
Since Donald Trump is on a tirade about The Wall, immigration and aid to countries, like Honduras, I thought it might be good to update you on the Mérida Initiative. As you might remember, the Mérida Initiative was created by George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón in 2008 to deal with the drug cartel violence… Read More The Merida Initiative
Many of the readers of my blog know that I am the only foreigner within my nuclear family. Both my parents are naturalized U.S. citizens and my siblings were both born and raised in the United States. Even with those circumstances, I was not able to use “chain migration” to come to the United States.… Read More What Chain Migration Really Is
Enrique Peña Nieto, the current president of México, like his predecessors, is chasing the Almighty Dollar. This is the single most significant reason that Donald Trump can denigrate Mexicans, because the Mexican government would rather play “political niceties” rather than stand up to the bully that Donald Trump is. The Peña Nieto government believes that… Read More México and the Almighty Dollar
Recently, the issue of the immigration “lottery” system and “chain migration” has entered the common vernacular of the immigration debate. The lottery system and chain migration are the result of a broken immigration system that traces back its origin to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, wherein the United States codified who was allowable… Read More How Chain Migration and the Lottery System was Born
On September 21, 1976, a car bomb exploded on embassy row in Washington D.C at 9:35am. Two people were killed, and one was injured from the explosion. Twenty-five-year-old, Ronni Moffitt died, leaving her husband, Michael, of four months widowed. Along with Moffitt, Orlando Letelier, 44, was also killed. Letelier was the target of the bombers.… Read More The Orlando Letelier Affair
One of the things that makes me write about politics is the utter hypocrisy from all politicians and those who support them. It’s the mentality that it’s all good as long as it those doing it agrees with the agenda of the politico. If it’s the other side then its all bad, corrupt, even. In… Read More Stop Being Hypocrites About Russian Interference in 2016 Elections
Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s focus on today’s politics – Donald Trump and the ongoing immigration debate and how Kissinger is the architect of the divisiveness on immigration. Today’s debate about “shit hole” countries and immigration control hearken back to… Read More Henry Kissinger, the Architect of Shit Holes
Today is the remembrance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that officially brought the United States into World War II. As the day’s remembrances play out today, it is important to note which countries came to the defense of the United States and which were the enemy. For me, as an immigrant, it is… Read More Pearl Harbor and the Mexican Friendship that Extends Beyond Politics
The DEA, or the Drug Enforcement Agency, has a very checkered past in its mandate to eradicate drugs from the country. Ostensibly, DEA agents keep narcotics off the streets, but as anyone can see today, it is very ineffective in its mandate. Illicit drugs still trickle into the country every day. Yet, funding and resources… Read More DEA Rogues Are Bad for America
On Tuesday, the Fourth Round of NAFTA negotiations concluded. Leading the U.S. delegation was United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. The Canadian delegation was led by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Secretary of the Economy, Ildefosno Guajardo led the Mexican delegation. The three ministers issued a joint statement stating that the concluded… Read More NAFTA Closer to Ending
On Friday, we looked at the number of countries that have received Mexican foreign relief in response to disasters. The notion has been that México takes and never gives back. As Friday’s post demonstrated, México has provided foreign aid to about 20 nations, including the United States, about 40 times since 1996. Many in the… Read More Foreign Aid from Mexico to the United States
There are two major issues driving the debate about limiting immigration to the country. The first is the cultural identity of the country. Some fear that the changing cultural face of the country brought on by an influx of immigrants into the community. English as the official language of the country is part of this… Read More Mexican Labor
What has México ever done for us is the number one question I get when discussing U.S.-México relations and immigration issues. A narrative has been allowed to exist where México is portrayed as needy and always taking while never giving back. It is the narrative that fits the nativists of the nation. But it is… Read More What Has Mexico Ever Done for Us?
Many of you know that Venezuela is in turmoil and that Donald Trump threatened Venezuela with military intervention last week. What you may not know, or realize, is that there are other dynamics at play. The U.S. news media normally ignores Latin American geopolitics unless there are flashy headlines of riots run amok. This is… Read More Venezuela, Mexico and the United States
Also lost in the noise and the distractions about the Russian scandal and healthcare reform is another little piece of information that Donald Trump and his supporters do not want you to notice. In the first six months of this year, U.S. consumers are still buying Made in Mexico cars over the U.S. versions. This,… Read More Car Shoppers Still Buying Mexican Made Cars
As you likely remember, Donald Trump called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) the worst trade deal the United States has entered. During his presidential campaign, Trump argued he was going to end NAFTA. After the election, he toned down his argument, instead now arguing that he would renegotiate NAFTA, and if need be,… Read More NAFTA Negotiations
The House Republicans released the Homeland Security funding bill on Tuesday. In it there are $1.6 Billion to fund the U.S.-México border wall. This is only the initial amount requested by the Trump administration. The total appropriations bill is for $44.3 billion. The wall portion accounts for less than one percent. However, the proposed amount… Read More The Trump Wall Paid for by America
Today, I figured I’d put aside my dislike of Donald Trump and the choices made by U.S voters and focus instead on wishing you and your families a wonderful Fourth of July holiday. I’ll get back to Trump and hateful politics tomorrow. But, for now, I want to wish my U.S. citizen friends a happy… Read More Happy Day of Independence
Yesterday we looked at the Carrier deal and how it is nothing more than a saving jobs smoke-and-mirror narrative. As we saw, Donald Trump bribed Carrier $14,830 per job it kept in Indiana. We also looked at how Donald Trump demonized México as a job killer. Like Carrier, Donald Trump also strong-armed Ford into keeping… Read More China is Our Friend, Mexico is Not
The foreign policy of the United States can best be described as a disjointed approach to policy in contradiction to itself. The United States issues a foreign policy dictum while at the same time it acts in direct contradiction to its stated policy. This has been going on for generations and therefore it has little… Read More The Schizophrenia of the United States Foreign Policy