The surprising public praise for U.S. President Donald Trump by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue in recent days has been a godsend to the Trump campaign’s Latino outreach efforts.
To be sure, most U.S. Hispanics traditionally vote Democratic and see Trump as the most anti-Latino U.S. leader in history. But these latest de facto endorsements of Trump’s reelection by these high-profile figures will give precious propaganda ammunition to the Trump campaign.
If anything else, the Trump campaign will use them to try to counter the view that the president is a racist who launched his 2016 campaign with the false claim that most Mexican undocumented migrants are “criminals” and “rapists.”
I would not be surprised if we soon start seeing Trump campaign ads in battlegrounds states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona and Nevada, showing a smiling Trump in the company of Lopez Obrador and Unanue.
“Neither the Mexican president nor the Goya CEO’s comments endangers the Democrats from losing the Hispanic vote, but any percentage point of the Hispanic vote that the Republicans can deny Joe Biden might represent the difference between Trump’s defeat and reelection,” Democratic strategist and pollster Fernand Amandi told me.
In his July 8 visit to Trump in the White House, Lopez Obrador made the amazing statement that Trump “respects” Mexico, and the U.S. president has shown “kindness” and “understanding” toward Mexicans. Lopez Obrador did not meet with Biden, nor did he talk to him during his U.S. visit.
In a separate White House ceremony on July 9, Unanue, the Goya Foods CEO, said with Trump at his side that, “We are all truly blessed” to “have a leader like President Trump.” Unanue’s remarks sparked a call to boycott Goya Foods by several celebrities.
Indeed, Lopez Obrador and Unanue’s praise for Trump is likely to go down in history as a textbook case of political hypocrisy, overheated rhetoric, cultural betrayal or outright stupidity.
Trump is the most anti-immigrant U.S. president in recent memory. In addition to his “criminals” and “rapists” comments, he started his 2016 campaign by saying a third-generation federal judge of Mexican descent should not be allowed to preside over a case “because he’s Mexican” and promising to build a wall along the Mexican border.
Once in office, Trump placed migrant children in cages, separated migrant mothers from their babies and has tried to deport more than 700,000 “Dreamers,” the children of undocumented immigrants who have been raised in America.
More recently, Trump has moved against legal immigration, too. He has signed an executive order dramatically curtailing employment-based visas and tried — until a judge stopped him this week — to expel foreign students.
Now, with the help of Lopez Obrador and Unanue, the Trump campaign will portray Trump as a pro-Hispanic president.
Polls show that, despite his lead, Biden is underperforming among Latinos. Biden is getting about 58% of the Latino vote while Trump gets about 33%. By comparison, former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was leading by 61% to 23% at this point in the 2016 campaign.
The Biden campaign has launched a massive turnaround effort, planning to spend $1 million in Spanish-language outreach and hiring the Latino Decisions polling firm, according to Politico.
But so far, I’m seeing a much stronger public relations effort to win Latinos voters from the Trump campaign. The Biden campaign is counting on Trump’s disastrous record on race relations, immigration, jobs and — most important — his late and erratic response to the COVID-19 pandemic to win Latino votes, but that may not suffice to get out the Latino vote.
If the Biden campaign doesn’t wake up, it runs a serious risk of losing a larger share of the Latino vote — and of losing the election.
Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Email: aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com.
