Migrants make their way to a Border Patrol van after crossing illegally and waiting to apply for asylum between two border walls separating Mexico and the United States on Jan. 21 in San Diego.Gregory Bull/The Associated Press
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico called for “cool heads” to prevail after a series of executive orders by U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at her country.
In a news conference on Tuesday, she said that Mr. Trump’s border emergency declaration and plans for Remain in Mexico – which requires asylum seekers to stay south of the border while their cases are heard in U.S. courts – are “not anything new,” having been implemented in his first administration.
Ms. Sheinbaum also said Mexico would support its nationals in the U.S., calling them “heroes and heroines of the nation.”
“May they know that the President of the republic will always defend Mexico, above all else,” she said.
Early in his inaugural address Monday, Mr. Trump turned his attention to Mexico. He promised to declare an emergency on the U.S.’s southern border, sending troops “to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
He also promised to restart construction of the border wall, carry out mass deportations and revamp the Remain in Mexico program. He pledged to designate drug cartels as foreign terror organizations and signed an executive order on Monday night to examine whether this can be achieved.
In his speech, Mr. Trump appeared to temporarily spare Canada and Mexico from tariffs. But in a news conference on Monday evening, he indicated that both countries could face 25-per-cent tariffs as early as Feb. 1. Mexico sends more than 80 per cent of its exports to the U.S.
“None of this is surprising,” said Arturo Sarukhán, former Mexican ambassador to Washington. Mexico, he added, “is his electoral pinata again, just like 2016.”
Ms. Sheinbaum called an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss migration matters on Monday, after Mr. Trump’s inaugural address.
The Gulf of Mexico will retain its current name, rather than being renamed the Gulf of America as Mr. Trump wants, she said. On the designation of drug cartels as foreign terror organizations, Ms. Sheinbaum stated: “They can act and must act within their territory, we have said that criminal organizations also operate within the United States,” but “let the Mexican people be assured that we will always defend our sovereignty and independence.”
The executive orders follow Mexico ramping up criminal detentions and fentanyl busts since Ms. Sheinbaum took office in October. She has said Mexico doesn’t want to receive non-Mexican migrants removed from the U.S., though she recently suggested that posture may change.
A Border Patrol agent hands out bag tags to a group of migrants waiting to apply for asylum between two border walls separating Mexico and the United States after crossing illegally on Jan. 21 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)Gregory Bull/The Associated Press
The country has been detaining record numbers of northbound migrants, sending them to its southern states rather than their countries of origin. Those migrants could request appointments through an app for entering the U.S. That app, operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, stopped accepting requests Monday, announcing that existing appointments were no longer valid.
Earlier on Monday, Ms. Sheinbaum outlined a program for Mexican migrants returned from the United States in Mr. Trump’s mass deportations, promising them health care, job assistance and reimbursement for travel expenses.
Ms. Sheinbaum has focused her discourse on the estimated five million undocumented Mexican migrants living in the U.S. She has promised to legally defend migrants, and the Foreign Minister is providing a way for those detained to call for help.
Analysts question the government’s preparedness, however, pointing to the Foreign Ministry budget remaining flat for 2025. Instead, there’s a mix of denialism and wishful thinking, said Bárbara González, a political analyst in Monterrey. Because the country survived Mr. Trump with Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “we’ll survive again.”
The pause on potential tariffs on Canada and Mexico “is an open invitation for both governments to sit down and negotiate so that they can avoid tariffs,” said Diego Marroquín Bitar, the Bersin-Foster North America Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Everything is on the table” with the trade agenda no longer “separate from immigration and security.”
“Everything” includes Mexico’s internal security. Mexico has long opposed designating drug cartels as foreign terror organizations – something Mr. Marroquín Bitar said could allow the U.S. government “to better tackle their finance networks, but risks undermining all co-operation with Mexico.”
Security analysts say co-operation could unravel if unilateral U.S. military action is taken, as some Republican politicians propose. It could also prove countereffective as past efforts at removing kingpins have unleashed violence with underlings squabbling over leaderless criminal empires.
“Doubling down on force as the silver bullet to wipe Mexico’s crime groups off the map is intellectually and strategically impoverished,” said Falko Ernst, a security analyst in Mexico. “It’s been tried and it’s made things worse: more violent, more costly and more chaotic.”