When President Peña Nieto took office his administration introduced a so-called “Pact for Mexico,” an agreement between the country’s three main parties to eliminate political gridlock and pass a series of reforms.
The pact was hailed internationally as a lesson in civilized politics and unity. It could also be a blueprint for a new pact that repositions the country’s various factions in a united front against Trump.
Opposition lawmakers have harshly criticized Peña Nieto’s timid response to Trump so far, but they seem hungry to unite under some articulated leadership.
“It’s fundamental that we unite to face the new administration in Washington,” said Armando Rios Piter, a politician for the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who’s leading the charge against Trump in the Mexican Senate.
“But there are no coordinated actions between powers and other actors such as entrepreneurs. There are individual efforts, but not a common front,” he told me.
Rios Piter recently visited California with a group of Mexican senators to launch “Operation Monarch,” a program aimed at raising binational cooperation with U.S. lawmakers to shield Mexican immigrants.
“We want to create a legislative agenda so that families who get deported can assimilate, so that their studies can be validated, we are identifying their needs and looking for institutional responses,” he said.
Rios Piter says he’s also contacted the mayors of Chicago, Phoenix and New York in what could become a strategic alliance between Mexican politicians and U.S. cities opposing the Trump administration.
