President Claudia Sheinbaum was openly critical of a former president during her Friday morning press conference, but refused to be drawn into a debate with a current one.
Here is a recap of the president’s March 21 mañanera, which had a strong focus on Mexico’s present and past security situation.
Sheinbaum: ‘I’m not going to enter into a debate with Bukele’
During Sheinbaum’s Q&A session with reporters, one journalist raised a social media post made by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on Thursday.
On the X social media site, Bukele shared a post from another X user who asked who would be “such an idiot” to compare “security measures” in Mexico to those of El Salvador given that Mexico is “almost 100 times” bigger than the Central American country in terms of land area and has a population of 130 million compared to 6 million in El Salvador.
Above the post he shared, the El Salvador president wrote:
“I’ve seen a lot of posts like this and the truth is I don’t understand the obsession with El Salvador. But, in any case, 28 of the 32 states of Mexico have a population equal to or less than that of El Salvador. Why then can’t they resolve the security issue in a single state with fewer residents than El Salvador, having the resources of a country with 130 million residents? They [should] resolve the security issue in one state first, then in the next one and so on until they contain [insecurity in] those 28 states.”
He visto muchas publicaciones como esta y, la verdad, no entiendo la obsesión con El Salvador. Pero, en todo caso, 28 de los 32 estados de México tienen una población igual o menor a la de El Salvador.
¿Por qué, entonces, no pueden resolver el tema de la seguridad en un solo… https://t.co/WHjFC1kdOX
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 20, 2025
The security situation in El Salvador has improved remarkably during the presidency of Bukele, who began his first term in 2019. However, the 43-year-old leader has faced severe criticism for the methods he has used to reduce crime and violence.”Grave human rights violations under El Salvador’s state of emergency point to a systematic, widespread pattern of state abuse that has seen thousands of arbitrary detentions, the adoption of a policy of torture in detention centres and hundreds of deaths under state custody,” Amnesty International said in December.
“What the [El Salvador] government calls ‘peace’ is actually an illusion intended to hide a repressive system, a structure of control and oppression that abuses its power and disregards the rights of those who were already invisible — people living in poverty, under state stigma, and marginalization — all in the name of a supposed security defined in a very narrow way,” said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International.
Asked what she made of Bukele’s remarks on X, Sheinbaum declined to enter the fray.
“I’m not going to enter into a debate with Bukele,” she said.
“We could have a whole debate here about the way in which they’re confronting [insecurity], Sheinbaum said.
“He was elected by his people, but at the same time we ask for respect for Mexico,” she said.
“Respect, always respect, is the characteristic of diplomacy. So respect what we do in our country,” Sheinbaum said.
Sheinbaum and other federal officials have frequently highlighted the progress made in improving security in Mexico since the new government took office on Oct. 1. Homicides have declined in recent months and thousands of people have been arrested for “high-impact” crimes, but violence remains a major problem in various parts of Mexico.
While the Sheinbaum administration appears to be taking a more hardline approach to combating organized crime than its predecessor, and is perhaps moving away from the controversial “hugs, not bullets” security strategy of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the president has stressed that her government will always respect human rights in its fight against crime.
Former president Felipe “Calderón’s war against narcos won’t return,” Sheinbaum said in October when her government presented its new security strategy.
“… We’re not looking [to carry out] extrajudicial executions,” she said.
A tale of two ex-presidents
A reporter asked Sheinbaum whether Calderón — president between 2006 and 2012 — could be investigated for allegedly leading a “narco-government” given that his security minister Genaro García Luna was convicted in the United States of colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel while serving as Mexico’s top cop.
“It’s not up to us, it’s up to the Attorney General’s Office if evidence [against him] is found,” the president said.
She also said she had no knowledge of any case against the ex-president in the United States.
Sheinbaum highlighted that homicides and enforced disappearances surged during the administration of Calderón, who launched a militarized war on drug cartels shortly after he took office in late 2006.
“And then it turns out that the person who was in charge of that war was linked to cartels and is detained in the United States,” she said in reference to García Luna, who was sentenced last October to more than 38 years in prison.
“All this is public [information] today [but] we can’t stop mentioning it because there are young people who are 15 today who weren’t alive at that time, or 18 and they lived through it when they were little. They have to know that this is what happened in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said.
While Calderón has never been convicted of any crime and has denied knowledge of García Luna’s illicit activities, Sheinbaum asserted that “the people of Mexico have already judged Calderón and his six-year term of government.”
The National Action Party, or PAN — which ruled Mexico between 2000 and 2012 — has not returned to power since the end of Calderón’s presidency.
While Calderón left a “bad legacy” that “he’ll never be able to rid himself of,” AMLO was — and is — much loved by the people of Mexico, Sheinbaum said.
“The people of Mexico have a very special place in their heart [for López Obrador] and … maybe he is the most loved president in the history of Mexico,” she said.
Calderón was a “spurious president” who reached power due to “an electoral fraud” and “unleashed a war on his own country with consequences we already know about,” Sheinbaum said.
On the other hand, AMLO was “a president loved by his people,” she said.
“That is the legacy that will go down in history, as much as the adversaries want to speak ill of president López Obrador,” Sheinbaum said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
