It’s all fun and games until you become president
Jan 27, 2017, 6:10 AM | Updated: 8:23 am
The whole nation is getting an immersion course in negotiation tactics. And our first case study will be how to negotiate with your next door neighbor over who pays for your new fence.
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In this case, of course, the neighbor is Mexico and the negotiation is off to a rough start. President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled his scheduled meeting with President Trump after posting a defiant video saying Mexico would not pay for Trump’s wall.
“I reject the decision of the United States,” he said. “I regret and condemn the United States’ decision to continue with the construction of a wall that, for years now, far from uniting us, divides us.”
President Trump’s spokesman came back with a conciliatory statement.
“White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president never said the Mexican government would write a check to pay for it,” one reporter said.
Which may be true as long as you ignore Mr. Trump’s November 2015 appearance on Saturday Night live.
It was a joke of course, but it is also now a permanent part of the Internet, especially in Mexico.
And at the moment the latest polls in Mexico have President Pena with an approval rating of 12 percent. In part because he invited Trump to Mexico during the campaign.
So at this point, for him to agree to pay for a wall would be like washing Trump’s feet.
Of course, the SNL skit was all in good fun and it’s only a TV show. But as Mom always said, it’s all fun and games until one of you becomes president.
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