Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Mexico publishes Trump’s ‘secret deal’ on migration

1242579
1242579
minus
plus

Mexico City: Mexico published the document on Friday that Donald Trump earlier flaunted as a secret deal to curb migration, but denied it had capitulated to the US president’s demands for a so-called “safe third country” agreement.


Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard underwent a grilling in Mexico’s Congress, where some lawmakers insisted otherwise and demanded more details on what exactly he agreed to in the last-minute deal brokered a week ago to dodge Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexican goods.


Angry over a surge of Central Americans seeking US asylum, Trump is pushing Mexico to agree to a deal in which migrants entering Mexican territory would have to apply for refugee status there, not in the United States.


The language in the “supplementary agreement” released by Mexico appears to resemble that. However Mexico’s foreign ministry insisted the document — signed by a deputy legal adviser to the ministry and his State Department counterpart — was “not a binding bilateral agreement.”


Rather, it says the two sides agree to immediately open talks to arrive at just that — a “binding bilateral agreement” — in which Mexico “would accept the return, and process refugee status claims, of third-party nationals” who cross its territory to reach the United States.


If in 45 days Washington decides that Mexico City’s efforts to curb migration are not enough, then the Mexican government “will take


all necessary steps under domestic law” to bring that agreement into force in another 45 days, the text concludes. — AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon