U. S. President Donald Trump again tweeted his intention to build a wall along the Mexican border today and he produced another mean tweet about America’s southern neighbor, this time stating…
U. S. President Donald Trump again tweeted his intention to build a wall along the Mexican border today and he produced another mean tweet about America’s southern neighbor, this time stating that Mexico is “now rated the number one most dangerous country in the world.” But is it?
In a word: no.
Online sites that compile statistics and rank the world’s most dangerous countries do not appear to consider Mexico worthy of their lists, at least not any of the multiple lists this reporter examined.
At World Atlas Mexico isn’t on their list of our world’s 10 most dangerous countries. And in September, the World Economic Forum released a list of the 20 most dangerous countries and neither is Mexico on that list.
Both sites said that when compiling their lists, the criteria they used to find the level of danger in countries included the amount of crime, the degree of political unrest and the economic instability present in a country.
Trump sent out three tweets about Mexico and the wall early Thursday; they were in response to a discussion that took place at a meeting between White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington on Wednesday. Along with the insult, he re-uped his intention to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it.
At the closed-door meeting, Kelly told those assembled that due to natural barriers, not all of America’s southern border with Mexico will need a wall and that Trump had to be told that. Democrats at the meeting made Kelly’s admission public.
Here are Trump’s Jan. 18 tweets, in order, on Mexico and the wall.
The former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, a harsh critic of Trump, spoke with Canada’s CBC Thursday morning and responded to Trump’s latest invective directed at Mexico by criticizing the former reality-show host and his administration.
“It’s an absolute mess, the White House,” Fox said. “Nobody can plan ahead, nobody can think what’s coming.” Fox also said, as others from his country have, including President Enrique Peña Nieto, that Mexico will not be paying to build a wall along their border with the United States.
It is, of course, not the first time that Donald Trump has said pejorative things about Mexico, like telling a rally during the presidential campaign that Mexico is sending only their criminals, drug-dealers and rapists to America. Time Magazine has compiled a list of all the times that Trump has insulted Mexico.
The list is a lengthy one.
