US President Donald Trump’s wall-building obsession on the Mexican border will have repercussions which I doubt he has considered. During a World War 2 summit, then US president Franklin Roosevelt pressed UK prime minister Winston Churchill to hand Hong Kong back to the Chinese. Furious at the thought, Churchill asked Roosevelt if he had considered giving Texas back to Mexico. Hong Kong has now been part of China for more than 20 years but Texas is still a US state. While this may look immutable, these are indeed strange times. For building a wall focuses attention on where the border “should” be, and threatens to let the Latino genie escape the bottle. Apart from Texas, US General Winfield Scott forced the 1848 Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty on the Mexican government, which transferred what became California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming for a consideration of $15m. Barely a week earlier, gold nuggets were discovered at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento, givingrise to the C...
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