Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the Trump administration’s negotiations with Mexico over immigration as “diplomacy at its finest.”
“I’ve seen some reporting that says that these countless hours were nothing, that they amounted to a waste of time,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department Monday. “I can tell you that the team here at the State Department believes full-throatedly that this an important set of agreements.”
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Pompeo was disputing reports that much of the agreement to forestall U.S. tariffs in exchange for tougher migration policies in Mexico was the product of months-old negotiations, rather than any new breakthrough prompted by President Trump’s abrupt threat last month to impose the tariffs.
“The scale, the effort, the commitment here is very different from what we were able to achieve back in December,” he said. “It’s what prompted this series of conversations that took on a level of seriousness and a timed commitment that we were committed to getting done before the weekend.”
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard described the deal as a “fair balance” between the two countries, in part because his team was able to avoid agreeing to take responsibility for all migrants that enter the country with the goal of requesting asylum in the United States. But Ebrard did agree that asylum-seekers will be returned to Mexico while their cases are considered, a provision of the deal that expanded a smaller program.
Pompeo touted the compromise while warning that the U.S. will be watching to see if it has practical effect.
“The United States retained its ability to use its own determination of whether there was success along the border,” he said. “That means if it’s the case that we’re not making sufficient progress that there’s risk that those tariffs will go back in place.”
