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Neighbors help neighbors.
That’s the message the Mexican government has for Harvey devastated-Texas. Our Southern neighbor has offered the state aid and assistance to help recover from the catastrophic floods.
They might have gone with “When you go low, we go high.”
That’s because the Mexican government made the offer even though President Donald Trump used the weekend to continue to insist he’d find a way to force Mexico to pay for a wall along the Southern border, something the country has no intention of doing.
With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017
Mexico’s response to the president’s tweets was concise and consistent. On Sunday night the foreign ministry issued a formal statement. “As the government of Mexico has always maintained, our country will not pay for, under any circumstances ... a wall or physical barrier built on US territory along the Mexican border.”
But the statement didn’t stop there, despite the American president’s insistence on the wall:
The Mexican government takes this opportunity to express its full solidarity with the people and government of the United States for the damages caused by Hurricane Harvey in Texas, and express that we have offered the US government help and cooperation to be provided by different Mexican government agencies to deal with the impacts of this natural disaster — as good neighbors should always do in difficult times.
On Sunday evening, the Dallas Morning News reported, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray also spoke to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and verbally reiterated the country’s offer of aid.
On Wednesday the Texas governor said his state would accept the offer.
TX Gov. Abbott says the state will take Mexico up on its offer to assist, with things like vehicles, boats, supplies and food.
— Caitlin Huey-Burns (@CHueyBurns) August 30, 2017
This will not be the first time Mexico has offered disaster assistance to the United States.
In 2005, following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the Mexican government sent soldiers, medical personnel, engineers, and aid to the stricken citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi. They carried with them safe drinking water and food.
As the Washington Post reported on Monday, “By the end of their three-week operation in Louisiana and Mississippi, the Mexicans had served 170,000 meals, helped distribute more than 184,000 tons of supplies and conducted more than 500 medical consultations.”
It’s an image of Mexico completely at odds with the one Donald Trump has promoted since he launched his run for the White House.
The question is whether Texans remember any of that the next time they head to the polls. In 2016, the state went for Trump — and his harsh anti-Mexican rhetoric — giving the president 52.2 percent of the vote.
