Our Southern Border

I watched the press conference with President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada during which our President talked about borders needing to be secure and trade deals made more fair, saying our southern border was not secure and NAFTA not fair. I thought back to a physics principal. The greater the pressure between two sides of a barrier, the stronger the barrier needs to be. So if there is an increase in the imbalance of pressure, you have two ways to deal with the situation. You can either increase the barrier or decrease the pressures difference. This analogy can be applied to our southern border. The difference in pressure is the imbalance in the economies of the US and Mexico. The greater the difference in the living conditions the stronger the urge to migrate from the poorer to the richer country. Here too there are two solutions. Decrease the pressure by improving the living conditions in Mexico or build a stronger border. To verify the theory, during this last major economic downturn, more people left the US over the southern border than entered. President Trump chose not only to increase the barrier but to increase the pressure by reducing some advantages in trade we’ve allowed Mexico. As Mexico’s economy slips further, there will be such turmoil that we may not be able to build a wall tall enough to protect our interests. Certainly “the wall” is one solution but a better one may be to continue to improve Mexico’s economy. Turbulence in Mexico, caused by a weakened economy can bring into power a government sympathetic to a foreign interest and to stop this will take more than a wall but maybe an armed conflict. What I don’t think President Trump realizes that our foreign aid and our trade imbalances are not altruistic but serve a national interest. Raising standards of living in Third World countries creates markets for goods we can produce. Our main role in NATO is not to protect Europe but to protect ourselves. It allows a line of defense at the border of a potential enemy instead of on our border. The same can be said of our troops in South Korea and Japan. We are investing in our interest, the fact that it also helps another nation is secondary. I hope that I am wrong and the President understands this and all the bluster is to stoke his base which does not understand the nuances of international relations and everything will be fine.