The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has responded to the threat of the elected president of the United States, Donald Trump, that as soon as he takes office in January. Sheinbaum affirmed this Monday that his Government will collaborate on security matters with the Trump Administration without allowing abuses of Mexican sovereignty. “We collaborate, we coordinate, we work together, but we will never subordinate ourselves. Mexico is a free, sovereign, independent country and we do not accept interference. It is collaboration, it is coordination, but it is not subordination. And we are going to build peace,” Sheinbaum said from Mazatlán, this weekend.
The president has emphasized that it is on that side of the border that the weapons that generate violence in Mexico come from. “I said it in the letter I wrote to President Donald Trump, who is going to take office in January of next year: drugs are mainly consumed there; weapons come from there, and here we put our lives. Not that,” the president mentioned.
Sheinbaum has referred to the letter of unleashing a tariff war as a pressure measure to force Mexico to contain the caravans of migrants, mostly Latin Americans, seeking to reach the United States. In that text, written forcefully, the Mexican president , who assumed the presidency in October, alluded to the United States’ absolute lack of self-criticism regarding its co-responsibility in the problem of violence.
This is not the first time that Trump has announced his intentions to pursue a tough policy to confront drug trafficking. “All foreign gang members will be expelled and I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist groups. I will do it immediately,” Trump declared this weekend during a forum of the ultraconservative organization Turning Point in Phoenix (Arizona). “We will unleash the full power of federal security forces: ICE, the Border Patrol, the narcotics agency [DEA]the intelligence community and [aplicaremos] financial sanctions to expel migrant criminal gangs who are murdering, raping and mutilating our citizens. “We will deport, dismantle and destroy that network that operates illegally on American soil,” he added.
Trump’s announced strategy to combat organized crime is laced with racist and xenophobic prejudices, very present during the campaign that won him the US presidency for the second time. The Republican has previously said that he will close the border with Mexico from “the first day” of his Administration to stop “criminality,” associating it with migrants, a group that he has described on several occasions as rapists, thieves or murderers.
From Mexico, politicians, businessmen and analysts have warned that implementing this measure would only damage the economy of the North American region as a whole. Additionally, the president-elect has promised to carry out, undocumented or not, including their spouses, children and other relatives related to them. Mexico already acts as a safe third country and accumulates thousands of people waiting for asylum in the United States on its northern border. Sheinbaum added that, if this scenario occurs, he will ask Trump that migrants of nationalities other than Mexican be sent to their countries of origin.
Several US politicians have defended for some years the designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups, which would give their Government the power to act beyond its territory, with the risk of invading the sovereignty of Mexico and straining the relationship. bilateral to the maximum. Republican legislators. In his first presidential term, Trump offered his then counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to send troops to Mexico to combat criminal groups, a proposal that was decorously declined.
One of the Republican’s concerns is to contain what kills thousands of Americans. During the last campaign, as a Republican candidate, Trump declared that the posters have the power to “remove the president in two minutes; ”.
Trump’s return to the White House for President Sheinbaum’s government plans. His proposals to attract more investments through nearshoringcombating organized crime with social reintegration programs and treating immigration with a human rights perspective will come face to face with Trump’s wall, which demands a strong hand from Mexico and immediate results.
This Sunday, the Republican referred to Sheinbaum, whom he defined as a “charming woman.” “I was very hard on Mexico. I spoke to the new president, a woman who was lovely and wonderful, President Sheinbaum, a wonderful woman. But I told him: ‘You can’t do this to our country,’ Trump declared, referring to fentanyl entering through the southern border. Much of Sheinbaum’s six-year term will be marked by the pulse of the bilateral relationship with the United States. The challenge will test the negotiating spirit of the Mexican president, who has already shown a lot of firmness towards the Republican.
