At her Monday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about her desire to not engage in a public debate with United States President Donald Trump, who leveled a rather serious accusation against his Mexican counterpart on Sunday.
Among other issues, she revealed what she is doing to acquaint herself with the candidates seeking to be elected to judgeships next month, including dozens of people hoping to become Supreme Court justices.
Here is a recap of the president’s May 5 mañanera.
Sheinbaum says she doesn’t want to debate Trump ‘through the media’
A reporter asked Sheinbaum about Trump’s assertion that she is “afraid” of Mexican cartels, a claim the U.S. president made during an in-flight press conference on Sunday after he confirmed he had offered to send the U.S. Army into Mexico.
“There is very good communication with President Trump,” Sheinbaum responded two days after she said she rejected Trump’s offer of U.S. troops.
“In just over three months of his government, we’ve had more than five calls and the communication is good. Sometimes we don’t agree, but we say it in the telephone call, and there has been respect,” she said.
“So I don’t want the communication between President Trump and I, between the United States and Mexico, to be through the media and statements to the media,” Sheinbaum said.
“… Why create a [public] disagreement?” said the president, who rejected — in her April 16 mañanera — a previous claim by Trump that her government is “very afraid” of drug cartels.
Despite her assertion that she doesn’t want to communicate with Trump “through the media,” Sheinbaum has on other occasions responded to remarks made by Trump and the Trump administration at her morning press conferences, and on social media.
She has brushed off some of the threatening and disparaging remarks Trump has made about Mexico by simply saying that the U.S. president has his own unique “way of communicating.”
On Monday, Sheinbaum said that “everyone has their way of communicating” before telling reporters she doesn’t want “this” to become a “debate through the media with the government of the United States.”
“We have our communication. There are a lot of agreements … and when there are disagreements, they are also expressed through official means and personal communication. So it’s better we leave it at that so there isn’t an issue of debate, through the media,” she said.
Sheinbaum says she is researching judicial election candidates on the internet, like any other Mexican
A reporter noted that Mexico’s first ever judicial elections are less than a month away, and asked the president whether she will be voting on June 1.
“Yes,” Sheinbaum responded, prompting the reporter to inquire as to how she is “orienting” herself in order to be able to “choose the different candidates” she will support.
The president said that like “all Mexicans,” she is looking at the profiles of the (thousands) of judicial election candidates on the National Electoral Institute (INE) website, which has a “get to know them system” that INE says has been consulted on more than 4 million occasions since it was activated on March 30.
Sheinbaum, who moved into the National Palace late last year, said that she changed her address with the INE and would be voting “here” in downtown Mexico City on June 1 rather than “there” in San Andrés Totoltepec, a neighborhood in the Tlalpan borough of the capital where she used to live.
Later in the press conference, the president asserted that “the people are happy” that a judicial election will take place, although there are a range of concerns about the popular election of judges, including that the ruling Morena party will attempt to stack the courts with judges sympathetic to their cause and that organized crime groups could effectively install judges by pressuring or coercing citizens to vote for their preferred candidates.
Sheinbaum said that holding judicial elections is “a very democratic way to clean up the judicial power, … to put an end to this nepotism, corruption, and these judges that release criminals from organized crime with impunity.”
Mexico not delivering water to US out of fear of tariffs, Sheinbaum says
In response to a question about the water agreement Mexico and the United States recently reached, Sheinbaum said that Mexico would deliver water to its northern neighbor simply because a 1944 treaty obliges it to do so.
“They say that ‘out of fear of tariffs we’re delivering [water]’ — nothing to do with it,” she said.
Delivering water to the United States is “part of the 1944 agreement,” Sheinbaum highlighted.
“The United States delivers water via the Colorado River and we deliver via the Rio Grande,” she said.
In an April 10 post to social media, Trump said he would “make sure Mexico doesn’t violate our Treaties, and doesn’t hurt our Texas Farmers” by not delivering the water it owes to the United States.
“… We will keep escalating consequences, including TARIFFS and, maybe even SANCTIONS, until Mexico honors the Treaty, and GIVES TEXAS THE WATER THEY ARE OWED!” he wrote.
Mexico has struggled to meet its commitments during this five-year cycle of the treaty due to widespread drought that has been particularly severe in the northern states that border the U.S.
As part of the agreement the Mexican and U.S. governments announced last Monday, Mexico committed to immediately deliver water to the U.S. and temporarily give its northern neighbor a greater share of the water in six Rio Grande tributaries.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
