WASHINGTON -- The White House laid out its conditions Wednesday for averting President Donald Trump's threatened trade tariffs on Mexico, as new data showed migrant detentions at the southern US border have hit their highest level since 2006.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard was in Washington for top-level talks with Vice President Mike Pence, hoping to prevent the five percent import tariffs from coming into force Monday, potentially taking a deep toll on Mexico's economy.
Ahead of the meeting, a top White House official laid out tough terms for Mexico to halt the northward flow of Central American migrants, demanding it lock down its own southern border and process asylum claims inside Mexico.
Speaking from Ireland, Trump said he believes Mexico is ready to "make a deal."
"I think they will stop it. I think they want to do something and make a deal," Trump said. "They sent their top people to try."
"I think Mexico has to step up and if they don't, the tariffs will go on, and if they go high, the companies are going to move back into the United States. It's very simple," he added.
MIGRANTS SURGE 32 PERCENT IN MAY
The talks opened as the US Customs and Border Protection reported that more than 144,000 migrants were detained crossing the border with Mexico in May, a 32 percent surge from April and nearly triple the level of a year ago.
Most were families from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and the total included some 57,718 children, mostly hoping to escape chronic poverty and violence and get a foothold inside the United States.
CBP Acting Commissioner John Sanders said the numbers had overwhelmed government staff and facilities at the border.
Increasingly the migrants were arriving in large groups, including one of 1,036 individuals detained in El Paso, Texas on May 29.
"We are in a full-blown emergency. The system is broken," he said.
WHITE HOUSE CONDITIONS
Ebrard was hoping to convince the White House to hold off on the tariffs, which Trump said last week will rise by 5 percent each month, up to 25 percent, if the number of migrants reaching the US border isn't cut.
Mexico has deployed its new National Guard police force to its southern border and stepped up migrant detentions and deportations.
But the flow has continued: a caravan of around 1,200 Central American migrants entered southern Mexico from Guatemala on Wednesday, bound for the United States, police said.
Senior Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro said Mexico could avoid the tariffs by satisfying 3 conditions.
First and foremost, he said, Mexico has to accept the migrants' asylum requests under its own laws rather than allowing them to travel on to the United States to seek sanctuary.
"They can commit to taking all the asylum seekers and then applying Mexican laws, which are much stronger than ours," he told CNN.
Secondly, Navarro said, Mexico has to more strongly police its southern border with Guatemala to prevent migrants from entering.
"The southern border that Mexico has with Guatemala is only 150 miles (240 kilometers), and better yet it has both natural and artificial chokepoints where it is really easy to police," Navarro said, offering US assistance in the process.
Thirdly, he said, Mexican officials manning checkpoints on the roads that migrants take through Mexico must stop taking bribes and permitting the migrants to continue on their northward journey toward the United States.
"Those checkpoints are designed to stop the flood, but instead, it's the corruption, the government officials that make money from this human trafficking, that has to stop," he said.
"That's it, that's what we're looking for."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
