Wall Street Journal
By Alejandro Lazo
July 30, 2014
MEXICO
CITY—California Gov. Jerry Brown ended a three-day visit to Mexico City
Wednesday, capping a trip in which he drew attention to Mexico's
economic changes as well
as the plight of unaccompanied immigrant children in the U.S.
Mr.
Brown's visit to Mexico, his state's biggest export market, achieved
few concrete accords, but it was long on ceremony, meetings and signings
of memorandums of understanding.
The governor, meanwhile, spoke with several Mexican officials including
President Enrique Peña Nieto, who met privately with the 76-year-old
Democrat.
The
governor's trip was subsidized by California businesses eager to expand
in rapidly privatizing Mexico, as well as lobbyists, activists and
other state capital insiders.
With
an international stage and heavy coverage from the Mexican press, Mr.
Brown, seeking a fourth term this fall, seized the opportunity to
declaim on a variety of issues,
including climate change, immigration policy, wait-times at the San
Diego-Tijuana border and the shortcomings of online education offerings.
The
governor's sojourn south came as Mexico rapidly implements changes to
its economy pushed by Mr. Nieto, including the opening of the country's
oil and gas sectors and
new laws seeking to loosen up the fixed-line and mobile
telecommunications sectors.
Mr.
Brown warned of his state's own issues with deregulating the energy
market. Those warnings made headlines in Mexico, leading Secretary of
Economy Ildefonso Guajardo
Villarreal to try to reassure Mr. Brown at a closing ceremony.
"After
the good job the legislators have done on that, the regulatory
framework will follow along those lines to protect the national
interest," he said at a breakfast
banquet for Mr. Brown at the Club de Industriales, a high-rise
sanctuary in Mexico City for elite business and political interests.
While
the trip was ostensibly focused on trade, immigration policy and
climate change were the two subjects Mr. Brown addressed most often and
most passionately, speaking
in detail on the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border
and linking the two topics at an event Monday.
"We
can see how some are fearful of children walking across the border,"
Mr. Brown said at the signing of a voluntary climate-change agreement
with Mexico's Ministry of
Environment and Natural Resources. "What will they think when millions
of people are driven north from the parched landscapes of a world
degraded by intensifying climate change?"
Mr.
Brown described California's relationship with Mexico as older than the
one his state has with the "government in Washington." After convening a
Tuesday meeting with
Catholic bishops from Los Angeles, Mexico and Guatemala, Mr. Brown
pledged to do "whatever can be done by a mere governor" to aid the surge
of unaccompanied minors from Central America at the border.
"Certainly,
I'd do everything I could to make sure California will do its part to
shelter any young children that are in need of protection," Mr. Brown
said. "I certainly
support additional shelters to deal with the particular immediate
challenge we have."
Jessica
A. Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who
focuses on law and politics, called the trip largely "symbolic," but
still significant given
California's size and importance in the U.S.
"Symbolism
matters in politics," she said. "[Gov. Brown] is very clearly staking
out a position on the immigration debate and the fact that he went to
Mexico at this time
and signed all of these agreements is significant."
Bill
Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said that Mr.
Brown's comments in Mexico weren't enough, and, as the governor of the
state with the nation's
largest immigrant population, he needed to go to Washington and "offer a
middle-of-the-road solution to unraveling the knot that is immigration
reform."
Throughout
his trip, Mr. Brown seemed to relish his tightly packed schedule, which
was condensed further by the addition of last-minute meetings with
President Nieto and
the bishops. Mr. Brown also seemed to enjoy taking light jabs at
Republicans, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, chiding his decision to
send National Guard troops to the Texas border and describing his
relationship with House Majority Leader-elect Kevin McCarthy
as one "that probably needs further development."
He even ribbed the fancy trappings and accommodations provided by the California Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the trip.
"This
is the glitziest thing I've ever seen," he said on his first night in
Mexico. "But this is the way Republicans live, so let's enjoy it."
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