Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump got bad news today: The PGA announced it’s moving a major pro golf tournament from the Trump National resort here in Doral to Mexico.
That country's been the target of some of Trump's harshest campaign rhetoric – he's called Mexican immigrants "drug traffickers" and "rapists" and has pledged to make Mexico pay for a border wall – and the PGA tournament is relocating to Mexico City in large part because it got a better deal to move south of the border to the Chapultepec Golf Club.
That in turn may be due to Trump's controversial remarks – a situation that doesn't surprise former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who is in Miami this week as a keynote speaker for the Kellogg Innovation Network conference.
"[Trump's] the loser," Fox told WLRN (see video). "He himself is now the one not able to compete. This shows that Chapultepec Golf Club is much more competitive and attractive to the PGA than [he is]."
"So what he should do is abandon politics."
Few Mexicans have responded to Trump’s remarks this year as passionately or as explicitly as has Fox – who reiterated to WLRN that Mexico "will not pay for that f------ wall." And he considers Trump's golf grief a sort of poetic justice.
“The way he has promoted hate, these are the consequences." Fox said. "It seems to me that he’s not clear that every action has a reaction. For instance, in the case of the menacing proposals that he has for Mexico, he’s not considering what the retaliation on the part of Mexico could be.”
Not surprisingly, Fox had praise for the PGA.
“I think PGA [did] very well on that because we are North America together – Mexico, United States and Canada. And that’s what we should be doing, building bridges. My grandfather was born here, in Cincinnati, Ohio. So I want the very best for American workers. I want the very best for Mexicans, that contribute so much to the U.S. economy. That’s what I am after on this.”
For his part, Trump warned today the golf tournament will face security threats in Mexico.
