MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - “America First is a fallacy,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told U.S. President Donald Trump in a letter on Thursday, responding to a White House announcement it was imposing a blanket 5% tariff on all goods from Mexico from June 10.

Lopez Obrador said he wanted to avoid confrontation with the United States, and that ideals such as justice and universal brotherhood were more important than borders.

The Mexican president also ordered his foreign minister to travel to Washington on Friday. </s> Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks to the media during a news conference, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, May 21, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - “America First is a fallacy,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told U.S. President Donald Trump in a letter on Thursday, responding to a White House announcement it was imposing a blanket 5% tariff on all goods from Mexico from June 10.

Lopez Obrador said he wanted to avoid confrontation with the United States, and that ideals such as justice and universal brotherhood were more important than borders.

The Mexican president also ordered his foreign minister to travel to Washington on Friday. </s> Lopez Obrador said he wanted to avoid confrontation with the United States, and that ideals such as justice and universal brotherhood were more important than borders.

The Mexican president also ordered his foreign minister to travel to Washington on Friday. </s> Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador hit back at President Trump in a public letter, decrying his plan to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports because of the administration’s border migrant crisis. “With all due respect, although you have the right to express it, ‘America First’ is a fallacy because until the end of times, even beyond national borders, justice and universal fraternity will prevail,” López Obrador wrote in a letter released late Thursday. The Mexican president said his foreign minister would be in Washington, D.C., on Friday to negotiate with U.S. officials. On Thursday, Trump tweeted that on June 10 the U.S. “will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.” “The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,” the president added. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that the tariffs would be raised to 10 percent in July, 15 percent in August, 20 percent in September, and 25 percent in October. </s> President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that he would defend the interests of Mexicans but wanted to avoid a clash with Washington, after the Trump administration announced it would slap punitive tariffs on its southern neighbor unless it did more to stop irregular migration.

“There is no need for confrontation,” the leftist president said at his daily morning news conference.

Mexico is heavily dependent on trade and this year has surged to become the No. 1 trading partner of the United States, eclipsing Canada and China. The Mexican peso slid nearly 3 percent overnight on the news, to almost 20 pesos to the dollar.

López Obrador said he has received broad support from the Mexican public after Trump announced late Thursday that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods coming from Mexico unless it stopped the migration flow.

[Trump and Mexico’s new president got off to a good start]

“I want to insist that we will not fall into any provocation; we are going to act prudently,” said the president. “With respect to U.S. authorities, and President Donald Trump, we think that all these conflicts in the bilateral relationship must be confronted and resolved with dialogue.”

López Obrador dispatched his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, to Washington on Friday for urgent talks.

The White House plans to launch the penalties on June 10 and increase them if Central American and other migrants continue to cross Mexico to the United States.

López Obrador has maintained a cordial relationship with Trump despite significant policy differences on immigration and other issues.

Mexico has responded to concerns about the growing surge of migrants at the U.S. border by stepping up deportations of undocumented immigrants and intensifying its scrutiny of people crossing its southern border.

“We haven’t just been sitting around with our arms crossed,” said López Obrador.

He said that Mexico would enforce its immigration laws but would not take actions that violate human rights. He noted that people were flowing out of Central America “not by choice, but necessity” because of violence and a lack of jobs.

López Obrador has sought to enlist the United States and other countries in supporting a “Marshall Plan” for Central America, aimed at improving infrastructure and job opportunities in a way that would discourage migration. But while Washington has offered loan guarantees, so far it has not committed substantial funding to the plan.

Trump says U.S. to impose 5 percent tariff on all Mexican imports beginning June 10

Trump’s tariff threat to Mexico may upend trade deal, undermine the economy

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news </s> Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador responded in a public letter he posted on Twitter Thursday in which he alluded to the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. "The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol," he wrote.

López Obrador added that he will send his foreign relations secretary to Washington on Friday. </s> As Trump announced he would raise tariffs on Mexican goods, the president of Mexico published an open letter to Trump.

On Friday—the same day that President Donald Trump announced plans to impose new tariffs on Mexican goods to try to strong-arm the Mexican government to "halt the illegal flow of migrants" to the United States—Mexico's president published an open letter to Trump.

"Remember that I do not lack bravery, that I am not a coward nor timid, but rather I act on my principles," writes President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known in his country as AMLO.

This is not the first time López Obrador has addressed Trump directly. In addition to the open letter he sent Trump when he first took office, AMLO published an entire book called Oye, Trump—"listen up, Trump"—in 2017. The book collects portions of López Obrador's speeches in which he spoke about the U.S. president, including one in which López Obrador declares that Trump and his advisers "speak of Mexicans the way Hitler spoke of the Jews" just before the Holocaust.

Compared to Oye, Trump, López Obrador's letter on Friday remained congenial but firm. Here are some key takeaways.

Contrary to Trump's rhetoric, under López Obrador, the Mexican government has continued a massive crackdown on immigration from Central America through the country. But López Obrador has shown a public willingness to frame the problem more as a refugee issue than an illegal immigration crisis.

"Human beings do not abandon their homes because they want to, but rather by necessity," AMLO writes. He also maintains that his government has complied with its responsibility to prevent migrants' passage through Mexico, but only to the degree that such methods are "possible without violating human rights."

Lessons From the Decrease in Mexican Migrants to the U.S.

In the last decade, the number of Mexicans migrating to the U.S. has plummeted. As the Mexican economy improved and the U.S. experienced a recession in the late 2000s, Mexican border crossings dropped by over a million per year, to just a few hundred thousand today.

AMLO points to this trend to propose a solution to the migration crisis. "Soon, Mexicans will not face the necessity of coming to the United States, and migration will be optional, not forced," he writes. He says that the diminishing number of Mexican migrants comes from Mexico's efforts to combat corruption and poverty and to improve the social sphere.

As Mexican migration has fallen, rates of Central American migration have risen rapidly. To solve the problem, AMLO proposes multi-national cooperation efforts to develop and aid Central American countries.

'Social Problems Can't Be Resolved With Tariffs or Coercive Methods'

Halfway through his letter, López Obrador addresses Trump directly and asserts that tariffs aren't the way to solve the migration issue. He decries efforts to keep migrants in a "ghetto," and to turn away people fleeing persecution. "The Statue of Liberty is not just an empty symbol," López Obrador writes.

In his letter, López Obrador shows an appreciation of U.S. history: He mentions the cooperation between Benito Juárez (Mexico's first indigenous president) and Abraham Lincoln, and he heaps praise on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, calling him "a titan of liberty."

But the Mexican president goes on to assert that Trump's "American First" policy is misguided. "With all due respect, although you have the right to express it, 'America First' is a fallacy because until the end of time, beyond national borders, justice and universal fraternity will prevail," he writes.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador responds with a letter to the U.S. president stating he wants to avoid a confrontation, saying that ideals such as justice and universal brotherhood are more important than borders. He also ordered his foreign minister to travel to Washington on Friday.