The Trump administration is attempting to negotiate a deal with Mexico over the thousands of Central American caravan migrants camped out in Tijuana and Mexicali, and last night, announced there was one, with asylum applicants having to wait out adjudication of their claims in Mexico, not the U.S. The idea was to disincentivize junk asylum claims from applicants whose real aim is to work in the U.S. for a couple years and remit the earnings until courts get around to dismissing the claims and deports them.

Well, until Mexico said there wasn't a deal.

Which is about par for Mexico, given its weakness. After all, the migrants have already shown that they can bust down Mexico's southern border with little trouble and then shake out bus service and other succor from city, state and national authorities up and down Mexico in the hopes that the migrants will just keep moving northward and become someone else's problem. There's also the presidential transition in Mexico, with the outgoing government perfectly happy to create some problems for the incoming one, and the incoming one holding a leftwing populist stance, although Trump seems to get along well enough with them. Because obviously some talks took place and some kind of "short term" deal was reached, yet Mexico is now saying nothing happened. Yeah, sure. Watch the left cheer...

But here's some reality: Trump holds all the good cards. As Mexico balks and changes its story about whether there was ever a deal, Trump can still squeeze Mexico if it doesn't play ball.

One, he threatened to shut the entire border. That's the one the good people use, the ones who engage in legal trade, not the dusty desert paths of the illegals and the cartel guides they pay. A shutdown would cost Mexico billions, because the San Diego-Tijuana border is literally the most crossed border in the world. No deal, no entry for anyone into the U.S. And that's called "making the economy scream."

Two, Mexican officials, back when the deal was said to be in place, said they were woefully afraid of their country becoming a highway for migrants on their way to easy entry into the U.S. So even though the Mexican government is denying a deal now, we know they know what's coming if the don't stop the caravans. Here's a CNBC report:

Olga Sanchez Cordero, Mexico's incoming interior minister and the top domestic policy official for Lopez Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1, told the Washington Post the plan, known as Remain in Mexico, was a "short-term solution."

"The medium- and long-term solution is that people don't migrate," Sanchez Cordero said. "Mexico has open arms and everything, but imagine, one caravan after another after another, that would also be a problem for us."

Now the migrants are holed up in Tijuana where so far, busting into the U.S. hasn't been as easy as the positively Chavista far-left caravan organizers (read this) had advertised. Troops, razor wire and port-of-entry security measures were what the caravaners got instead.

It's all part and parcel of Mexico's fecklessness, sending contradictory signals throughout that such a situation has happened now. Tijuana, meanwhile, is calling for international aid, as crime, disease, and public anger take hold. The caravan organizers, such as Pueblo Sin Fronteras, played Mexico's government like a fiddle, and counted on their army of leftwing lawyers and Obama judges in the U.S. to play the U.S. like one, too. But apparently, President Trump's border reinforcement measures, even in not being his desired wall, were enough of a roadblock.

With more caravans already on the way, and more of the problems created by these mass movements of low-skilled, uneducated, military-aged young men, and single mothers looking for welfare, Mexico can look forward to more of the crime, garbage, and disease such caravan operations would bring. As caravan operations multiply across Mexico, the Tijuana protests would become national protests.

Memo to Mexico: Make a deal with Trump or deal with that.

Image credit: CBS News, via YouTube, screengrab