President Claudia Sheinbaum has been described as a “Trump whisperer,” but a majority of Mexicans believe that her administration is not doing a good job managing the relationship with the U.S. president, according to the results of a recent poll.
The newspaper El Financiero surveyed 1,000 Mexicans between Aug. 14 and 25, asking them a range of questions related to the Mexico-U.S. relationship.
The polling began two weeks after Sheinbaum spoke to Donald Trump and won a reprieve from an increase in U.S. tariffs on non-USMCA compliant goods that was scheduled to take effect on Aug. 1.
The poll was conducted shortly after a U.S. drone flew deep into Mexican airspace to monitor cartel activity, and began the day that Trump claimed that Mexico “does what we tell them to do,” an assertion dismissed by Sheinbaum.
56% of poll respondents think Sheinbaum is doing a bad job managing the relationship with Trump
El Financiero asked the poll respondents to “rate the way in which the government of Claudia Sheinbaum is handling the relationship with Donald Trump.”
Fifty-six per cent of respondents said that the Sheinbaum administration is doing badly or very badly in that task, while just 28% of those polled said it is doing well or very well.
The remaining 16% of respondents didn’t answer one way or the other.
El Financiero didn’t ask for specifics on why people thought the Sheinbaum administration was doing a good or bad job managing the relationship with Trump. Some observers claim that the Mexican government is being too subservient to the U.S. government, even as Sheinbaum repeatedly asserts that Mexico takes its own sovereign decisions to best serve its own national interest.
Since Trump began his second term on Jan. 20, the United States has imposed tariffs on a range of imports from Mexico, undermining the USMCA, and pressured Mexico to do more to combat cartels and the northward flow of narcotics. The Mexican government has made some progress in those areas.
Sheinbaum — who maintains a very high personal approval rating — has spoken to Trump by telephone on several occasions, and the latter has described the former as a “terrific person and “wonderful woman.”
However, his administration has accused the Mexican government of affording “safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics,” a claim that has currency among opposition politicians in Mexico.
Speculation remains that the U.S. government could use military force against drug cartels in Mexican territory, although Sheinbaum has dismissed that possibility and frequently declares that Mexico will never accept any kind of violation of its sovereignty.
Relationship between Mexico and US is bad, according to a majority of poll respondents
El Financiero also asked the 1,000 people it polled to rate the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
Just over half of the respondents — 51% — said that the bilateral relationship was bad or very bad. The percentage was six points lower than in July.
Almost four in ten of those polled — 37% — said that the Mexico-U.S. relationship is good or very good, an increase of 10 points compared to El Financiero’s July poll. That indicates that the Mexican government’s efforts to stave off a higher tariff rate (30%) on non-USMCA compliant goods were recognized by some poll respondents.
Trade and security have been the dominant issues in the bilateral relationship this year.
During El Financiero’s polling period, the security relationship suffered a hiccup after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration touted the launch of what it called a “bold bilateral initiative to dismantle cartel gatekeepers and combat synthetic drug trafficking.”
Sheinbaum subsequently said that her government wasn’t part of any such initiative.
The Mexican and U.S. governments will have an opportunity to address any remaining fallout from that episode when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits Mexico City on Wednesday.
Most respondents are opposed to US military action against cartels in Mexico
Sixty-five per cent of respondents said they disagreed with the idea of deploying U.S. military forces to combat criminal groups in Mexico. That percentage declined 10 points compared to July, suggesting that some Mexicans have changed their opinion on the matter.
One-third of respondents — 34% — said they were in favor of the U.S. military taking action to combat Mexican cartels, six of which are now designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. That figure is up 10 points compared to July.
The poll results don’t align with Senator Lily Téllez’s claim last month that most Mexicans would welcome U.S. assistance in the war against drug cartels.
Opposition Senator Téllez tells Fox News that Mexicans want US help against the cartels
The Trump administration is certainly willing to deploy the military to Mexico to take action against cartels, as Sheinbaum revealed in May that she had rejected an offer from the U.S. president to send the U.S. army into Mexico. It would appear unlikely — albeit not inconceivable — that the U.S. would unilaterally take military action against Mexican cartels on Mexican soil.
Two-thirds of poll respondents — 66% — said that the Mexican government should “defend national sovereignty” and not allow the United States to get involved in the fight against drug cartels in Mexico, while 31% said that the Sheinbaum administration should collaborate more with its U.S. counterpart. The former percentage declined 19 points compared to July, while the latter increased 18 points.
Most respondents support handover of cartel figures to US
Two days before El Financiero began its poll, the Mexican government sent 26 organized crime figures to the United States, marking the second large transfer of Mexican prisoners to the U.S. this year.
Just over seven in 10 respondents — 72% — said they agreed with the decision to hand over the criminals (or alleged criminals), while 25% disagreed with the move.
A slightly higher 76% of poll participants told El Financiero in March that they agreed with the decision to hand over 29 cartel figures to the United States. That transfer of prisoners occurred in late February.
Mexican authorities portrayed the separate handovers of the organized crime figures as sovereign decisions that were in Mexico’s best interests, as there was a possibility that some of the prisoners could have been released from Mexican jails.
Insecurity seen as Mexico’s biggest problem
Asked what Mexico’s “main problem” is today, 55% of poll respondents cited public insecurity.
While the number is still high, the percentage of El Financiero poll respondents citing insecurity as Mexico’s No. 1 problem has trended down this year from a high of 78% in January.
Sheinbaum touted the reduction in homicides her government has achieved during the presentation of her first annual government report in a 70-minute speech on Monday.
A total of 36% of respondents cited the Mexican economy or corruption as Mexico’s biggest problem. The split among that cohort was even: 18% cited the economy as the top problem and 18% mentioned corruption.
Economic growth is slowing in Mexico, while the country recorded its worst-ever score and dropped 14 spots on Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index, even as Sheinbaum and other federal officials assert that corruption in government is largely a thing of the past.
With reports from El Financiero
