The message being delivered by the Mexican president to the American one has been none too subtle: Pay up or else.

To you, our readers, who haven’t been under a rock for the last four years, it’s well known that we have a southern border in name only. Obviously, it was one of the priorities of Joe Biden’s Democrat handlers to open up the border and bring in just as many prospective Democrat voters as they possibly could under the guise of “asylum.” After all, who needs a border when you can simply fly illegal aliens in?

Still, the overwhelming share of our “undocumented workers” come across the Mexican border, with many of them crossing through from other nations. It’s been a contention for years that their various cartels — which began as drug-smuggling operations — have branched out into another lucrative field: that of trafficking people across the border for a hefty fee or loan with severe penalties for nonpayment. (Or, in some heartbreaking cases, severe penalties like gang rape and forced prostitution as payment.)

Yet because the migrants are entering the U.S. from another sovereign country, their cooperation (or lack thereof) helps to determine our success in border security. It takes two to tango and all that. But with leadership thought to be in the pocket of the cartels, it’s a difficult task made even more so by American lack of effort.

As he prepares to leave office later this year, part of the farewell tour of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (better known by the initials AMLO) landed him in front of CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi for an interview with “60 Minutes.”

It wasn’t enough that he remarked that Donald Trump couldn’t close the border because “he needs Mexico” as a place where manufacturing is done more cheaply, claiming cars would cost up to $15,000 more if Mexican assembly plants were closed. Indeed, since it was hammered out during the Trump years, the USMCA trade deal has made Mexico our leading (legal) trading partner.

No, what was most infuriating was how AMLO blamed the fentanyl problem on American addicts. Noting that fentanyl production wasn’t limited to just Mexico, AMLO asked: “You know why we don’t have the drug consumption that you have in the United States? Because we have customs, traditions, and we don’t have the problem of the disintegration of the family.”

Obviously, it’s a healthy family unit that illegally sends its children to a foreign land to send a few dollars back home, right?

While billions of dollars are already remitted to Mexico every year from these “intact” families, AMLO has even loftier ambitions — some may call it blackmail — as a price for cooperation. Writing at National Review, Luther Ray Abel did a fine job assessing AMLO’s demands:

Obrador’s list of essentials, before he’d consider lifting a finger to control migration, include: the United States’ committing $20 billion to Latin America (graft), lifting sanctions on Venezuela (enabling a leftist dictator), ending the Cuban embargo (propping up another leftist dictatorship), and legalizing Mexicans living in the U.S. Insane.

Yes, it is insane, and it’s no wonder Abel may have only been partly joking when he suggested, “The Biden administration — after looking at some maps — should consider directing the U.S. Army and the Air Force to level Mexico and install Ted Cruz as governor of our newest state.” (Knowing this administration, though, they would order a strike on Texas instead.)

Meanwhile, those who are willing to wait out AMLO in hopes of a better deal may be disappointed. As this author noted a few weeks back, Claudia Sheinbaum is the odds-on favorite to be Mexico’s next president. She hails from the same leftist party as AMLO and even followed a similar path to power, serving as the head of Mexico City’s government before seeking the national post.

So if we can’t get two to tango, at least in November, we can have one side stop dancing for a while.