Shannon O'Neil, Columnist

Trump’s Bullying on Border Crisis Will Backfire

Mexico and Central America can do little to curb migration without robust U.S. support.

April 3, 2019 at 3:30 PM UTC

Shannon O'Neil is senior vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter."

Stopping the bucks won’t stop the people.
Photographer: Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump has gone after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico, threatening to close the border if Lopez Obrador didn’t stop the movement of Central Americans north. He called out Central America’s leaders as well, announcing an end to hundreds of millions in aid for their supposed recalcitrance.

Yet Trump’s bullying tactics will not lower the number of women, children and men leaving El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras for the United States. If anything, the aid pullback will undermine the tenuous ability of these nations to mitigate these migratory flows.