The Mexican government, the Mexican export sector and the Mexican people got some good news Wednesday about Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
Howard Lutnick, United States President Donald Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said that Mexico and Canada can avoid blanket 25% tariffs on their exports — as Trump has pledged to impose — if they act quickly to stop the flow of fentanyl to the U.S.
“This is a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada and as far as I know, they are acting swiftly, and if they execute it, there will be no tariff. And if they don’t, there will be,” Lutnick said at his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing.
Mexican officials have stressed that they are already taking strong action against narcotics, touting arrests of high-profile cartel figures and large drug seizures, including the confiscation of more than 1 tonne of fentanyl in two busts in Sinaloa last month.
President Claudia Sheinbaum has said on repeated occasions that she expects to reach an agreement with the United States government to avert Trump’s proposed 25% tariff.
At her morning press conference on Wednesday — held before Lutnick’s confirmation hearing — she remained confident that Mexico would avoid the 25% duty that Trump said his administration could impose on Mexican and Canadian exports on Feb. 1.
Confident that Trump’s tariff threat won’t eventuate
A reporter noted that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Trump still intended to impose a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States this Saturday.
“The truth is we don’t think it’s going to happen,” Sheinbaum said.
“And if it does happen we have our plan … that I’ll reveal in due course,” she said. “But we don’t think it will happen.”
Sheinbaum said in November that Mexico would impose a retaliatory tariff on U.S. exports if Trump acted on his threat, but more recently she has focused on avoiding the commencement of a trade war.
She said Wednesday that her government is now engaged in dialogue with the Trump administration before stressing, once again, that she doesn’t believe the proposed 25% tariff will eventuate.
A letter to Google over Gulf of Mexico name change
Sheinbaum said that the government would send a letter to Google after the tech company announced it would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in Google Maps in the United States following President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water.
“If you remember, Trump’s decree has to do with the continental shelf, which is different to the Gulf as a whole,” she said.
“So we’re sending a letter to Google,” Sheinbaum said, explaining that one of its aims would be to ensure that the company is aware of “this international division.”
“… Tomorrow, we’ll show you the letter that we’re going to send today,” she said.
“… To change the name of an international sea it’s not a country that changes it, it’s an international organization,” the president added, referring to the International Hydrographic Organization.
“… And, by the way, we’re going to ask [Google] for Mexican America to appear [on Google Maps], for the map of Mexican America to appear when one types in Mexican America,” Sheinbaum said.
After Trump announced his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America earlier this month, Sheinbaum proposed calling the United States — or at least the country’s southwest — “Mexican America,” as part of the U.S. was referred to on a 17th-century map she presented.
Esteban Moctezuma to remain as Mexican ambassador to US
Sheinbaum confirmed that Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma — federal education minister during the first two years of the 2018-24 government led by ex-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador — will remain as Mexico’s top diplomat in the United States “for the time being.”
“All the ambassadors are always under review. … We’re going to look at whether there will be a change or not,” she said.
Moctezuma, who became ambassador in early 2021, said in a video message on Tuesday that his “responsibility” and “conviction” is to “stand up for Mexico,” and “especially our people” during the second Trump administration.
“… I am a soldier for Mexico and we’re living in times that call for unity in order to defend our people and our national interests,” he said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
. . . I know that the mountainous region of Chiapas ( Ocosingo – near Tonina mayan ruins and Zapatista heritage ) grows excellent coffee . . . my wish is that Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum encourages exports such as this to and with the USA . . . not everything has to be an automobile . . . and then for the President to take a look at the honeybee honey cultivation/production as another local industry to be promoted . . . and then repeat with other “hecho in Mexico” industries . . .
Yo vivo en La Crucecita Oaxaca. Yo soy Canadiense pero Tengo mi INE.
En mi opinión los Costeños estan muy feliz con Morena y nuestra Presidenta.
Gracias para tu ayuda para los Comuneros Señora Presidenta.
Bill (Memo) Layman
The USA should be careful….Mexico among other developing nations are tired of our country’s BS. No one stays at number 1 forever. In the words of another powerful leader from a previous generation:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” The USA’s dominance is fading. Time to learn how to get along in the playground. Let’s take care of our own problems. Fentanyl addiction is a USA problem. Exporting illegal weapons is a USA problem. Not creating a guest worker/immigration policy is a USA problem. Let’s clean our own house and quit blaming our neighbors for our BS.
Totally agree! And the human ugliness Trump’s escalating deportation activity is imposing unimaginable pain in threatened households all over the EEUU. I live in Washington state where ICE has been conducting raids. An employee of a service provider today described how his 10 year old daughter (born in Bellingham) was inconsolably distraught and sobbing with fear about ICE agents ramming down the door of their house and taking him and her mother away in the middle of the night after watching social media videos on line of hundreds of arrests around the country. The inhumanity of what is happening is simply ungodly and shameful for the EEUU. How is possible that Trump’s supporters are okay with that?
The US has immigration laws and they must be followed. Those in the country illegally need to get out. They can start over the right way.
Amen
Exactly right. Many in the U.S. know and understand these facts, but the vast majority who get their information from biased sources, have no idea of them and easily believe what is fed to them for political gain. I don’t see this changing soon, unfortunately.
I hope the US continues the pressure to end the cartels in Mexico. Mexican government refuses to do anything. Meanwhile, innocent people are blown away like the 10 killed in Queretaro recently and the thousands of businesses that have to pay protection money under threats of death.
The thing is all Mexican presidents fall under the purview of the drug cartels in short order. It’s either that or you’re family/friends, etc. disappear. Why not take the $15 mil or whatever and let the drugs and illegals continue to flow? Tarriffs don’t move Sheinbaum’s bottom line. She may pay lip service to the US and tacitly ‘agree’, but the proof will be in the inaction that will follow.
Oh no the poor United States! We’re so put upon and powerless! Every nation takes advantage of the poor US! Poor, poor, poor United States! Right out of the old fascist playbook: victimizer as victim. USA look to your own and take responsibility for the problems you had a hand in creating.