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A week ago, the authors warned insistently that if, after two inept and confusing primary election procedures by the Democratic Party in Iowa and New Hampshire, Donald Trump could conceivably be reelected in the presidential elections in November – that fear became much more intense after the Democrat debate of the six leading candidates in Las Vegas, Nevada on Wednesday, February 19th, 2020. That event turned into a turmoil of bitter recriminations – not against Trump – but against each other: A spectacle resembling a knife-fight in which the candidates tried their best to eviscerate each other. Witnessing this astounding performance on live TV, Donald Trump and his White House staff were celebrating – as reflected in a triumphant stream of Tweets to his followers.

This reinforces the worrying prospect of a possible reelection of Trump to a second term in the White House and leads the world (and the authors) to speculate about a Second Term Agenda of this despicable man:

His first order of priorities clearly will be focused on Mexico. Last week he already ordered the illegal transfer of 3.38 billion Dollars of the congressionally appropriated defense budget toward the building of his wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The expected legal challenges will reach the Supreme Court, dominated by Trump installed ultra conservative justices, in one year – timed exactly to uphold Trump’s nefarious plans. The next offensive against Mexico will involve the USMCA trade agreement, also known as the TMEC. After its ratification by Mexico and the U.S. it is expected that the Canadian Parliament will follow suit in October – just in time for Trump to hurl the frightening weight of what is not a free trade agreement but an agreement for managed trade – with Donald Trump as the manager! If the USMCA is ratified by Canada in October, then it will be a huge accomplishment for Trump because it is so close to the U.S. presidential election. With this, Mexico will once again be Trump's piñata for four more years. The U.S. will once again dictate the agenda of Mexico where there appears to be no government. There will be a very close watch for the fulfillment of the negotiated agreements and when the time comes that they are not fulfilled, the northern country will have the necessary arguments to put Mexico back into an even more punitive negotiation process. It is just about guaranteed that he will weaponize the labor protection provisions of the protocol to the USMCA as well as the environmental protection provisions in that same protocol. Inexplicably, in the negotiations leading to that protocol, our chief negotiator, Jesus Seade, agreed to the installation of a labor attaché as well as an environmental attaché with a staff of 100 monitors and inspectors each, who will roam freely to any corner of our nation to verify whether or not Mexico and its industries, in the ataché’s exclusive opinion, are implementing labor protections, environmental protections, as well as minimum wage requirements, (70% of all automobile components must be mate in North America and 40% of them must be made by workers earning at least 16 Dollars an hour). The frightening aspect of the USMCA is, that there is no prohibition against the imposition of punitive tariffs or the barring of the U.S. market to all products made by non-conforming Mexican producers and/or exporters. By agreeing to the USMCA our leaders have given Trump the tools to put us into a potentially lethal economic choke-hold. Celebrating the ratification by both houses of Congress, the U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, exulted: “This was probably the most momentous day in trade history ever.” Now, Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as well as White House Director of the National Economic Council will be free to fully address all of Trump’s concerns with Mexico’s enormous trade surplus – amounting to 74 billion Dollars last year – in an effort to eliminate our competitive advantage, all under Trump’s banner of: “America First!”

In pursuance of that goal, the next order of priorities will be to totally dismantle the World Trade Organization and to replace globalization with closed economies and bilateral trade arrangements. The first step in that direction Trump has already taken: By refusing to appoint three new arbitrators to the WTO’s Arbitration Tribunal and thereby depriving it of a quorum, he has effectively paralyzed the organization. In Trump’s new world the U.S. will be the dominant force - a world resembling that of the pre-industrial age. Trump survived his impeachment trial immensely emboldened, lashing out at all of his perceived enemies, not only Mexico but worldwide. He is guaranteed to respond against recalcitrant allies in his hypothetical second term with irrational brutality – a case study in merciless retribution. But the big question we must ask ourselves is whether Mexico is prepared to face the likely re-elected president? Let's not forget that Trump has already snapped Mexico's fingers once, and unfortunately it seems that it won't be the last time. We must assume that an increasingly weakened Lopez Obrador will face a new and strengthened Trump who will not hesitate for a second to give a second knock out to his southern neighbor.