Trump’s US-Mexico Border Agenda: An Agenda-Building Examination of Candidate-Generated Messages

Abstract

In New York City, on June 16, 2015, Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States. During his speech, he stated, among other things, that Mexico is no friend of the US because it is economically killing the US. At the border, Mexicans are bringing drugs, are bringing crime, they are rapists, and Mexicans have a lot of problems that they are bringing with them to the US. Also, Trump stated that Mexico is taking America’s jobs. Trump finished his talk by saying that he will build a wall on the southern border and Mexico will pay for it. From this moment on, the US-Mexico border region became the news epicenter in the nation, making the national news agenda daily throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. This paper examines Trump’s candidate-generated messages as part of his political communication strategy. The present investigation content analyzed Trump’s official website, his first 100 days contract, his political ads, and his tweets to identify Trump’s border agenda. Outcomes show that, overall, Trump presented a total of 16 issues, six of which were related to the border. The six issues were economy, foreign policy, immigration, regulations, taxes, and trade. Each of the issues were content analyzed to determine their particular issue positions regarding the border. Results documented that 27 issue positions were related to the border, two positions coming from the economy, five from foreign policy, eleven from immigration, two from regulations, four from taxes, and three from trade. Therefore, the most important issue related to the border was immigration. Its topmost recurrent issue positions were to build a wall on the border with Mexico that Mexico will pay for, to secure our borders, to stop immigrants, to stop drugs, to stop money, and to end illegal immigration to keep America safe. Overall, Trump’s most effective political communication venues to disseminate his US-Mexico border agenda to American voters was Trump’s Tweeter account and his First 100 Days Contract.