Todd Bensman - Senior Natl. Security Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, that's a little more reminda sized version of Mexico.
Six twenty four is their time here in Houston's morning News.
It feels like the Trump administration is already underway. He's
negotiating with the president of Mexico as it relates to fentanyl,
as relates to illegal immigration, and of course the big
stick for him is tariffs and it has them scared
to death. Todd Bensman, Senior and National Security Fellow at

(00:22):
the Center for Immigration Studies for all the complace here
about people, Well, they're going to make things more expensive
with tariffs. It's a negotiation tool for Trump and it
seems to be working pretty well.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that's right. That is a shot across the bow
that Mexico really heard in Canada too. They're taking it seriously.
They have to, because it's Donald Trump. He's coming to
office with a big baseball bat and he's going to
use it at the diplomacy table. And I think that

(00:57):
they understand what this meet. It's economic devastation. And all
they really have to do is what they've been doing
for Joe Biden for the last year, which is Operation Carousel.
It's called in the media. It's been a major military
operation throughout Mexico for since December of last year that

(01:20):
Biden got them to do. We don't know what under
what terms, but Biden definitely got them to do it
to keep the decongestion at a minimum at the border.
During the campaign, it looked terrible for Democrats, right, campaigning
on an issue that is you say, doesn't really exist.

(01:43):
But here they are running over the border by the
tens of thousands a day or a month. And so
Mexico can do this, and because of the tariff threat,
they already are doing it to a significant extent for
Trump now that the election's over. But doing it for Trump.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Let me ask you this, though the cartel. We know
how deeply entrenched the cartel is, and they are working
in many ways, they've worked in concert with the Mexican government.
So how does Mexico resolve the relationship with the cartel.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, that's going to have to be part of the negotiation.
Because Shinbaum, the new Mexican president, has adopted her predecessor's
policy toward the cartels, which they call I'm not making
this up. This is what they call it. Hugs not
bullets for the cartels. That's not going to work. It's

(02:40):
not going to fly for the Trump administration. It's going
to have to be bullets, not hugs for Trump. And
we'll see what sort of leverage and demands that Trump makes.
I don't know if he's really quite gotten to that,
other than that you now shout combat the Mexican drug

(03:01):
cartels to an extent greater than we've seen really in many,
many years, maybe since the Calderon government. The Trump administration's
gonna want Mexican war, military, kinetic war with these cartels.
And we'll see whether you know, they can leverage that.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, that's gonna be interesting, to say the least. Todd,
thank you appreciate it. National security fellow at the Center
for Immigration Studies, that is Todd Bensman. It is six
twenty seven