BUSINESS-01
the Wall, Didn't Discuss Payment"; Pena Nieto: NAFTA Good for Both U.S. and
Mexico; Brazil's Senate Votes to Oust President; First U.S.-Cuba Flight in
50 Years. Aired 4-5p ET - Part 2>
Marsh >
Wayne>
Mexico City after their meeting. The issue and the relationship between
Trump and Mexico, besides the idea of deporting 11 million illegal
immigrants, it's really being defined by the wall. Felipe Calderon served
as Mexico's president from 2006 to 2012. He says Mexico won't pay one cent
for Trump's border wall. Michel Temer has been sworn in as the new
President of Brazil after Dilma Rousseff was ousted. Brazil senate voted
61 to 20 to remove the country's first female president from office. New
relations between the United States and Cuba, regularly scheduled
commercial flights have begun between the two countries.>
Politics; Trade; Travel; Brazil>
And then Donald Trump went on with his five-point plan, which I might add, he did not mention mass deportation or deportation force, which is the big issue in the United States. But he did say that we want to end illegal immigration, and we're going to build a wall. And he didn't ask who's going to pay for it.
QUEST: And the Mexican president, without reference to the deportation, says it's my responsibility to protect Mexicans wherever they may be.
BORGER: Right. So it begs the question, doesn't it? It begs the question because there weren't a lot of questions that were answered here, although Donald Trump did answer some questions. But you know, Donald Trump went on about ending illegal immigration, you know, securing the border, dismantling drug cartels, improving NAFTA. He didn't say kill NAFTA. Talked about improving NAFTA and keeping manufacture wealth in our, our hemisphere.
QUEST: So there's a lot in there that the president could agree with. In terms of --
BORGER: Sure.
QUEST: You know, if we stick to the banalities of policy, strengthening borders, security, keeping manufacturer in our hemisphere, but you're left always with the wall and the deportations.
BORGER: Well, and you're left also with what the president of Mexico has compared Donald Trump to, Hitler and Mussolini. Remember that. He's since walked back those comments a bit, but Donald Trump's language in this campaign has clearly been such an issue to him personally, and to people in Mexico personally, that you know, the question I have is whether the diplo speak is going to work.
QUEST: What did you make of Donald Trump's appearance? The way he comported himself? Because he had to look presidential whilst at the same time not giving ground.
BORGER: Right, and I think he could help himself, to be honest. I think he went out of his way to sound diplomatic. To kind of say he had a tremendous respect for the president and we all want what's good for our countries, professing his love for America as he did. And saying, but I'm going to be strong.
[16:40:00] Now, so I think standing next to the president of Mexico as a candidate for president of the United States could help Donald Trump in the way that he wants it to help him. It's not going to help him any more with the base of the party who may be angry with him for doing this, but it could help him with those voters who are kind of on the line here, trying to figure out what to do, and saying, oh, he looked presidential, or he's reaching out. The suburban Republican women he's been losing ground with.
QUEST: Finally, he gives this speech tonight on immigration. It's a time when they say their policy is clear, but everybody else says it's not.
BORGER: Right.
QUEST: So tonight, does he have to in abc ways, 1, 2, 3, say yes, we'll still deport. Yes, we'll build a wall. Does it have to be that clear?
BORGER: Well, I think clarity would be useful, with 69 days left until the election. But I think what you're likely to hear is what Donald Trump Jr. signaled the other night to Anderson Cooper, which is baby steps. Was the phrase he said. This is not what we heard at the beginning of the campaign. We heard build the wall and deport. Now you're going to hear build the wall and then let's figure it out. Which by the way, was the position of a lot of other of those Republican candidates on the stage with Donald Trump.
So they're now scratching their heads and saying, OK, he said we were for amnesty. What is this? And that's going to be what the American public really has to decide, whether the base of the party feels betrayed by Donald Trump for not mentioning the deportation part of it or not going at it immediately, or whether they believe that he is being presidential and deciding to take it one step at a time. And whether that helps him with the larger group of voters he has to appeal to.
QUEST: We have never seen anything quite like we saw just then.
BORGER: You know, we see campaign conversions a lot here. But this is something that's really different, because this was the signature issue for Donald Trump.
QUEST: And on that note, we'll take a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: More on the Trump-Mexican President meeting from Washington, we're joined now by Earl Anthony Wayne, who served as the former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Ambassador, what did you make of it?
EARL ANTHONY WAYNE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO: Well, I think it was a good discussion of the importance of our relationship with Mexico. It's the relationship that we have that touches the most daily lives of American citizens. You could see that from the discussion of the issues.
[16:45:00] QUEST: But you can have as many discussions as you like, but where one party in the discussion is threatening to build a wall, getting you to pay for it while deporting 11 million of your national citizens, it must have been, I think the phrase would be, an undiplomatic perhaps meeting of moments.
WAYNE: I think the key thing is people start talking about the facts here. We trade over a million dollars a minute with Mexico. We have five to six million U.S. jobs dependent on our trade to Mexico. They are the second largest buyer of our goods in the world. If you start talking about those facts, then you can have a serious effort to find solutions to the challenges.
QUEST: So what was in it for the Mexican President to have this meeting? Now, I know that it's customary to invite the candidates, but what does he get out of it? His polls are already low. This surely -- why did he do it?
WAYNE: Well, I can't second guess why he did it. I know he extended an invitation to both candidates, which is, I think, somewhat in that tradition of saying that this is an important relationship. And Mr. Trump accepted, probably a little bit quicker than anybody thought.
But I go back to this. It's really good to have a broad discussion, including this discussion of just how important this relationship is. There are a lot of good things going on between these two countries. And there are challenges they both need to work on.
QUEST: One of the things I notice, I'm just going back to the desk to get my notes, but one of the things I noticed is Mr. Trump talked about improving NAFTA. What was interesting is the Mexican President also agreed that the free trade deal which was signed 22 years ago, he said we're willing to re-examine NAFTA. So that does suggest some sort of tinkering with NAFTA is agreeable to the Mexicans.
WAYNE: They do seem to have signaled that they're willing to have a dialogue on this. And in fact, the current draft agreement of the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership does in effect update and add chapters to NAFTA. For example, e-commerce didn't exist when NAFTA was signed, so there are places that NAFTA is not up with the times. And the same thing for environmental standards and labor standards. So there are areas where NAFTA is behind the most recent kind of trade accords.
QUEST: Ambassador, thank you. We'll talk more as the election moves on.
WAYNE: Take care.
QUEST: Michel Temer has been sworn in as the new President of Brazil after Dilma Rousseff was ousted. Brazil senate voted 61 to 20 to remove the country's first female president from office. Some senators sang the Brazilian national anthem as the results were announced. Others held up signs calling it a coup as she was suspended in May for allegedly misrepresenting the country's budget deficit. Shasta Darlington is in Brasilia What a moment. What was it like?
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Richard, you get so wrapped up in this long-running process that you sort of forget what a historic moment this is. Not only was Brazil's first female president impeached today, it also brings the end of 13 years of administrations run by the left-leaning Workers Party, which certainly had their high moments under Luiz Inacio da Silva, when China was buying up the all these commodities.
The peak was when the economy was growing at 7.5 percent a year. It also had its serious low points, we're now in the second year of a very deep recession. There's been this huge corruption scandal. That angered people enough that they wanted an end to all of this.
Today, that was brought to an end, and we have a new president, a much more conservative president. And one who frankly isn't very popular either, Richard, but he has friends in congress. That's what's important.
QUEST: Dilma Rousseff, is she finished in politics? Or I mean, she's been removed from this term, but can she stand again in the future or does this impeachment mean nope, it's over? She can never stand for national politics again?
DARLINGTON: Well, listen, Richard. Thanks to some last-minute wrangling in the senate, they split the vote in two. There was the impeachment vote, which removes her from the presidency. But they voted separately whether she could keep her political rights.
[16:50:00] In the end, there wasn't the two thirds majority needed to strip her of her political rights. In theory, that means she could run again for office and she could also hold a position in another government, in somebody else's government. She could hold public office that isn't elected.
There is another law, in fact, that's called the clean history, which likely would prevent her from running for office anyway, so the speculation here is that on the one hand, that just allows her to hold a public office, and on the other hand, it's sort of her way of just getting a little bit back from the senators. They didn't strip her of absolutely everything, Richard.
QUEST: Shasta, I shudder to think what your next big story is you'll be covering but you have certainly done sterling service for us on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS and we thank you for joining us tonight. We'll be back shortly. You need to take a moment, perhaps, to make, create, innovate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: New relations and the beginning of starts between the United States and Cuba, regularly scheduled commercial flights have begun between the two countries. The first landed in Santa Clara in Cuba this morning. The JetBlue flight left Ft. Lauderdale and took just an hour to complete the short journey. CNN's Rene Marsh was onboard that first flight. She's in Santa Clara. An hour in the air and decades in history swept aside, Rene.
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right. I can tell you, being on that flight, it was like nothing that I had ever seen. There was so much emotion on that flight, there was a lot of cheering, a lot of celebration. But then there was also just raw emotion as we were touching down here at Santa Clara.
You can see the airport here. There are some other flights coming in, so that's why you still see people milling around behind me. I had some time to speak with one woman who was onboard, and she just broke down in tears because she said that she hadn't been back to Cuba in 16 years.
She hasn't seen her family in that long. She had cancer and that's what kept her away, that coupled with how expensive the charter flights were. When she saw the $99 flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Cuba, she hopped on and said she was healthy enough to make this trip, and she just broke down in tears.
Those were the real people stories. Of course, there's the history here, as you mentioned, you know, it's been more than five decades.
QUEST: Rene, there are many more flights. Nine cities across Cuba and 20 flights a day to Havana before the end of the year will be introduced. Realistically, Rene, can Cuba cope with this sudden and dramatic increase?
MARSH: That is the question. As you mentioned, it was just announced today, those direct flights from various cities in the United States to Havana. You know, that is the most sought after destination, and that's why that destination took a little bit longer.
[16:55:00] But you know, just leading up to today, we were told that they were cutting the hedges, they were painting. So there is this push to get ready, but it remains to be seen, you know, how they will receive the crush of people who especially Havana looking to travel here from the United States. Again, it's now so easy, Richard.
You simply go on to a website, Travelocity, any one of those websites, and you can purchase a ticket. It was not that easy before, so they are expecting those numbers to be way up. There are plans to build, you know, extra hotels, things of that sort to essentially accommodate all of these people, but it remains to be seen how that will all work out.
QUEST: Rene in Cuba, I'll have a Churchill cigar on the way back, please. Thank you very much. Just get me a couple. Thank you very much.
Although I suspect everybody has asked her to bring something back. We'll have a profitable moment after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's profitable moment, strange sort of day really. Donald Trump goes to Mexico and meets the Mexican president. They talk about a wall but not who's going to pay for it, and a plane goes from the U.S. to Cuba and history is made. Put it all together and you have QUEST MEANS BUSINESS this Tuesday. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I do hope it's profitable. We'll do it again tomorrow.
END
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