President of Mexico says we must keep a “cool head” and avoid confrontation with Trump

The Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum affirmed that her government will adopt a pragmatic position, will avoid confrontations with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and will refer to the decrees that impact her nation, beyond the pronouncements.

The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Tuesday that we must keep a “cool head”, avoid confrontation with Donald Trump and only abide by the decrees launched by her United States counterpart that really impact the bilateral relationship, not only to his speech.

The same day he was sworn into office, Trump declared the US southern border an emergency zonesuspended a dating application for asylum seekers and reinstated the “Stay in Mexico” program that returns irregular migrants to the Latin American country, whether or not they have Mexican nationality.

“It is important to always have a cool head and refer to the signed decrees, beyond the speech,” Sheinbaum said in his daily press conference. “We have to avoid confrontations, it is a responsibility.”

The president stressed that the decree by which Trump declared the southern border of the United States an emergency zone on Monday “is very similar, practically the same” to another that he signed during his first term, in 2019, and that the “Stay in Mexico” also established it in 2018.

He clarified that Mexico has its own strategies for migration. “We act in a humanitarian manner but we have our immigration policy and we seek the repatriation of those people who are not Mexican to their countries of origin,” he indicated.

Regarding the designation of Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations announced by Trump, he stated that the United States can act as it wants in its territory, but Mexico is free and sovereign, although it was willing to continue cooperating in security and the fight against crime. organized.

Asked about possible retaliation if Trump imposes 25% tariffs on Mexico, something the Republican Monday said he was thinking of doing on February 1, she said we have to go “step by step.”

The president revealed that between Tuesday and Wednesday the Mexican Foreign Minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, and the Secretary of State appointed by Trump, Marco Rubio, are scheduled to hold a communication to initiate contacts between the two administrations.

Furthermore, he stressed that in one of the decrees signed the day before by his counterpart, the US trade representative is instructed to begin talks with Mexico and Canada for the review in 2026 of the North American trade agreement, USMCA, in force between the three countries since 2020. .

Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the United States Gulf refers only to that country's continental shelf, Sheinbaum said. “For us and for the entire world it is still called the Gulf of Mexico.”

During the president's intervention, the Mexican peso lost 1.1% on Tuesday morning to 20.6976 units per dollar, briefly reducing its losses but still being the currency that showed the worst performance globally compared to the US currency, hit by the measures. of Trump.

“What Sheinbaum is trying to do is try to calm things down (…) give that message to the market and the population in general to try to say it's not that everything is already written in stone and it seems to be more of a matter of negotiation “said Julio Ruiz, chief economist for Mexico at Citi, in an analysis note.