Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks during Wednesday's daily morning briefing in Mexico City. Ms. Sheinbaum spoke of wanting to improve Mexico-Canada relations.Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images
Speaking at her regular marathon morning news conference Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offered pithy comments on her meeting the previous day with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand.
She was responding to a softball question about all her recent meetings at the National Palace – with the Canadian ministers, visiting Walmart executives and synchronized swimmers and divers returning from the world championships.
Ms. Sheinbaum spoke of wanting to improve relations with Canada, promote investment and have Prime Minister Mark Carney visit Mexico. She then mentioned Canadian mining companies – an old bugaboo for her political base.
“We also talked about mining companies … and the need for them to comply with all the requirements imposed by environmental impact statements,” she said before changing the subject to the synchronized swimmers and divers.
Canadian ministers to discuss trade in meetings with Mexican president and government officials
Liberal cabinet ministers defend Canada’s U.S. trade strategy in Mexico
The brevity of Ms. Sheinbaum’s comments regarding the Canadian delegation underscored Canada’s low profile in Mexico, where foreign relations work focuses heavily on the United States and, increasingly under the ruling Morena party, spats with other Latin American governments in defence of leftist allies.
But it also demonstrated her control of the national agenda, as she alone speaks for the country – with little accountability and no rejoinders from state governors or business leaders. Comments from opposition politicians are rebuked as unpatriotic, and Mexican media rarely press the President with tough questions.
Ms. Sheinbaum boasts a 75-per-cent approval rating, according to newspaper El Financiero, while Morena and its allies hold supermajorities in Congress and control of most of the state governments.
Ms. Sheinbaum gifts Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney a soccer ball at the G7 Leader's Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., in June, 2025.Amber Bracken/Reuters
Her domestic political strength and dominance over the media landscape provide leeway for dealing with U.S President Donald Trump and making steep concessions without drawing a sharp outcry.
“The fundamental difference” with Canada “is that President Sheinbaum can say whatever she wants publicly because there is no one in Mexico who will demand comments that correspond with the facts,” said Carlos Heredia, a professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, a Mexico City university.
Ms. Sheinbaum addresses Mexico through her morning news conferences, where simple questions from pro-government influencers are the norm. The mañanera, as the presser is colloquially known, sets the news cycle for the day, as her comments are repeated throughout Mexican media.
She has used it to shape the narrative on Mexico’s response to Mr. Trump’s tariff threats, picking her retorts carefully – such as pointing to the stream of smuggled U.S. guns causing mayhem in Mexico. She often downplays negative news with pledges of co-ordination and co-operation, all the while insisting that “Mexico is respected.”
There are even attempts to find common ground with Mr. Trump, such as populist politics. “I think he respects us and we respect him for what we are: neighbours elected by our peoples,” she said July 31 after Mexico received a 90-day postponement of 30-per-cent tariffs.
Opinion: On tariffs, Trump is the opposite of unpredictable
Left unsaid: the concessions made by Mexico and the increasingly heavy ask being made by Mr. Trump, who has accused Mexico of giving drug cartels free rein.
“We continue to bend the knee and everything, or most of the things that Trump is asking for, the Mexican government is more or less delivering,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador in Washington.
“I don’t think a Canadian prime minister could do that. They just wouldn’t have the political capital or a population willing to do that,” he added. “The leeway that she has to do what she’s doing with Trump is basically predicated by domestic Mexican politics.”
For their part, Mr. Champagne and Ms. Anand held a virtual news conference for the parliamentary press gallery after their first day of meetings in Mexico City. They spoke of rekindling relations with Mexico, deepening business ties and strengthening supply chains. But they dodged questions about how Mexico got a 90-day deferment.
Ms. Sheinbaum described the reprieve as “a very advantageous condition for Mexico compared to any other country.”
She has received plaudits for deftly handling Mr. Trump by keeping a “cool head.” But she routinely acquiesces to U.S. demands. She won a 30-day tariff reprieve in February after agreeing to send 10,000 soldiers to the northern border – ostensibly to stop the smuggling of illegal fentanyl.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand pose at the National Palace in Mexico City on Tuesday as Ms. Sheinbaum looks on.Supplied/AFP/Getty Images
Mexico has stopped thousands of migrants from transiting the country toward the U.S. border – actions recognized by Mr. Trump. The country also handed over 29 drug cartel bosses to U.S. justice officials and cracked down on fentanyl labs. And unlike Canada, Mexico has not imposed countervailing tariffs on U.S. goods.
“She can do as she pleases, but she also knows there is lots of dirt in the Mexico drug lords file,” said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a Mexican sociologist.
Her willingness to acquiesce will be tested after Mr. Trump secretly signed a directive to use military force against the cartels his administration has designated as terror organizations, according to The New York Times.
Tony Keller: What does Donald Trump want from Canada? We are about to find out
“We co-operate, we collaborate, but an invasion is not going to happen. … It’s absolutely out of the question,” Ms. Sheinbaum said Friday in response to story. “When they’ve raised the issue, we’ve always said no.”
“Canada’s strategy is ‘elbows up.’ And if we had to summarize Mexico’s strategy, it’s ‘live to fight another day,’” said Luis Antonio Espino, a Mexican political analyst based in Toronto. “The bar for Sheinbaum is very low, and for Carney it’s very high.”
Ms. Sheinbaum has received a boost from domestic factors, too, such as social programs that provide seniors, single mothers and students with cash stipends of roughly $455 every two months.
The Mexican economy has slumped in 2025. But Mr. Trump’s trade war has weakened the U.S. dollar and correspondingly strengthened the Mexican peso. “The peso is climbing, and they think everything is going well,” Mr. Espino said.
Why ‘elbows up’ is Canada’s rallying cry in the trade war against Trump’s tariffs
Polls show deep Mexican disapproval of Mr. Trump. El Financiero put the figure at 86 per cent, according to a July survey. Just 29 per cent of Mexicans now view the U.S. favourably, down from 51 per cent six months earlier.
Analysts describe Mexicans as holding clear-eyed views of the United States. They never considered Americans to be close friends, have grown accustomed to receiving threats from U.S. leaders and remember being invaded twice by U.S. soldiers – losing half their territory in the Mexican-American War.
“The average Mexican senses the President can do very little and sees Donald Trump as a gringo doing what gringos have always done. But he does this very openly and rudely,” Mr. Espino said. “Mexico obviously can’t negotiate much,” he added. But for many Mexicans, “if the President manages another 90 days without much interfering in Mexico and the peso remains stable … there’s no real crisis.”