President Claudia Sheinbaum hit back at Donald Trump after the United States president-elect claimed that that she agreed in a call on Wednesday to “stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our southern border.”
In a post to social media on Wednesday night, Sheinbaum said that she told Trump that “Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples.”
Her conversation with the incoming president came two days after he pledged to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States on the first day of his second term as U.S. president due to what he described as the “long simmering problem” of drugs and “illegal aliens” entering the U.S.
Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s tariff threat in a letter, telling him that a U.S. tariff on Mexican exports would be met with another tariff “in response.”
In her letter, she also highlighted that “encounters” between United States authorities and migrants on the Mexico-U.S. border declined 75% between December 2023 and November 2024, and pointed out that Mexican authorities have seized tonnes of drugs so far this year, confiscated more than 10,000 weapons and arrested over 15,000 people “for violence related to drug trafficking.”
Conflicting accounts of the same call
On Wednesday afternoon, Sheinbaum described her call with Trump as “excellent,” writing on X that they discussed “the Mexican strategy” to attend to the “migration phenomenon.”
“I shared that [migrant] caravans aren’t arriving at the northern border because they are taken care of in Mexico,” she said.
“We also spoke about strengthening collaboration on security issues within the framework of our sovereignty, and about the campaign we’re carrying out in the country to prevent the use of fentanyl,” Sheinbaum wrote.
Later on Wednesday afternoon, Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he had “a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico” and that “she has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”
“We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!” he said.
Trump gave no indication that he had decided to cancel his tariff plan as a result of the commitment he alleged he received from Sheinbaum.
In a separate Truth Social post, the former and future U.S. president asserted that “Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately.”
“THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!” added Trump, who threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican exports during his first term as president but ultimately didn’t after Mexico agreed to ramp up enforcement against migrants.
In another post to Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, Trump wrote:
“I will be working on a large scale United States Advertising Campaign, explaining how bad Fentanyl is for people to use – Millions of lives being so needlessly destroyed. By the time the Campaign is over, everyone will know how really bad the horror of this Drug is.”
Sheinbaum: ‘Everyone has their own way of communicating’
At her morning press conference on Thursday, Sheinbaum reiterated that she didn’t make any commitment to “effectively” close Mexico’s northern border.
“Everyone has their own way of communicating, but I can assure you … that we never suggested that we were going to close the border, we would be incapable [of doing so],” she said.
“… It has never been our approach and of course we don’t agree with that. President Trump has his way of communicating but what we spoke about on the call was essentially … [Mexico’s] strategy” to stem the flow of migrants, Sheinbaum said.
She elaborated on that strategy at her morning press conference, noting that it includes the expansion of the federal government’s employment programs, the Sowing Life reforestation initiative and the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme, to countries in Central America.
Mexico also detains large numbers of migrants before deporting them or bussing them back to the country’s south, where they began their perilous journeys to the U.S. border.
Trump, Sheinbaum said, “recognized this effort that is being made.”
She said that she also spoke to Trump about the “fentanilo mata” (fentanyl kills) awareness campaign launched by the government of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“He was very interested,” the president said, adding that Trump requested information about the campaign.
Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, who was with the president when she spoke to Trump, has already sent the information to the president-elect’s team, Sheinbaum said.
She noted that she also spoke to Trump about security issues.
“He asked me how we can collaborate. I told him that within the framework of our sovereignty there are schemes for collaboration,” Sheinbaum said.
The president said that she and Trump didn’t specifically speak about tariffs, and rejected claims that Mexico and the United States would engage in a “tariff war,” even though she has indicated her government would retaliate against any U.S. duties imposed on Mexican exports.
“It was a very friendly conversation. We agreed there is going to be a good relationship,” Sheinbaum said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
