OPINION: Walls, despair and chaos

Hoyporhoy, La Prensa, Jan 27

IN 1986, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, went to Berlin to demand that the Soviets take down the wall that divided that city, for being a shame for civilization.

Donald Trump, President of the United States, has undertaken against the wind and tide the initiative to build a wall on the border between Mexico and his country, supposedly to prevent illegal migration. Further, contradicting its own aims has threatened automobile companies, established in Mexico or interested in doing so, with sanctions and very high tariffs.

Mr Trump does not seem to understand that only the development of countries reduces migration. Strangling Mexico, and in the end  the whole of Latin America will not bring benefits to his nation, and it is possible that the migratory crisis will worsen.

It would be very fitting if   Mr Trump and his advisers could  only understand that phrase which in 1947 was expounded by George Marshall, the father of the plan with which the United States helped rebuild Western Europe: ” Our policy is not directed against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, despair and chaos”