Breathe
By Stephanie Henaro
Last week I was in Austin, Texas at the Texas Public Policy Foundation Summit held from the 19th to the 21st of this month and it was very clear to me that with the return of Donald Trump, the United States has turned over a new leaf, that there is even talk of a "Trump Doctrine" and that it even has to do with Mexico.
The Summit was attended by Governor Greg Abbott and legislators such as Ted Cruz, Chip Roy, Dustin Borrows, Rick Santorum, Lois Kolkhorst, Charles Perry, Pete Flores, David Spiller, and Brian Steil, among others, who led conversations on topics as diverse as water, border security, elections, constitutional litigation, education, and the Chinese threat, and in which Mexico always appeared in one way or another, even almost reflexively.
The country is so present in the psyche of its northern neighbor that when Chip Roy, member of the House of Representatives for Texas' 21st district, gave one of the key speeches on the closing day of the event that focused on "The Trump Doctrine", he said that "the President's intentions could be compared to the principles of The Monroe Doctrine", because the current president "was not going to stop with just making America great again", but everything he touched, especially Mexico.
According to his words, "The Trump Doctrine was going to make Mexico great again," starting with getting the Mexican government to enforce the rule of law, break its ties with the drug cartels and stop them.
The latter from my perspective was huge and it hit me like a bucket of cold water. First because "making Mexico great again" and respecting the laws, should have come from us, then because it even seems that the New York magnate has become the only opposition, because the one here is no longer an option, and finally because if he compares this Doctrine with the Monroe Doctrine, it is because the United States is back in its expansionist facet.
