𝗠𝗘𝗫𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗡𝗕𝗔𝗨𝗠 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗗𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣'𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗦: "𝗪𝗘 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗕𝗘 𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗 . . .𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗣 𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗚𝗨𝗡𝗦 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧𝗥𝗬!"

President Claudia Sheinbaum, President-Elect Donald Trump

by Darinka Rodríguez, Zedryk Raziel, Borderland Beat

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded to US President-elect Donald Trump's threat that he will declare Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” as soon as he takes office in January. Sheinbaum has affirmed this Monday that her government will collaborate on security matters with the Trump Administration without allowing outrages to Mexican sovereignty. “We collaborate, we coordinate, we work together, but we will never subordinate ourselves. Mexico is a free, sovereign, independent country and we do not accept interference. It is collaboration, it is coordination, but it is not subordination. And we are going to build peace,” Sheinbaum said from Mazatlan this weekend.

The president has stressed that drugs are consumed in the United States and that it is on that side of the border where the weapons that generate violence in Mexico come from. “I said it in the letter I wrote to President Donald Trump, who is going to take office in January of next year: drugs are consumed there, mainly; the weapons come from there, and here we put the lives. Not that,” the president mentioned.

9 out of 10 weapons seized in Mexico come from the U.S.

Sheinbaum has referred to the letter in which she responded to Trump's repeated threats to unleash a tariff war as a pressure measure to force Mexico to contain the caravans of migrants, mostly Latin Americans, seeking to reach the US. In that text, written with forcefulness, the Mexican president, who assumed the presidency in October, alluded to the absolute lack of self-criticism of the United States regarding its co-responsibility in the problem of violence.

This is not the first time Trump has announced his intentions to exercise a heavy-handed policy to confront drug trafficking. “All foreign gang members will be expelled and I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist groups. I will do it immediately,” Trump declared this weekend during a forum of the ultra-conservative organization Turning Point in Phoenix (Arizona). “We will unleash the full power of federal law enforcement - ICE, Border Patrol, the narcotics agency [DEA], the intelligence community, and [apply] financial sanctions to remove the migrant criminal gangs that are murdering, raping and maiming our citizens. We will get rid of them [...] we will deport, dismantle and destroy that network operating illegally on US soil,” he added.

Trump's announced strategy to combat organized crime is laced with racist and xenophobic prejudices, very much present during the campaign that propelled him to the US presidency for the second time. The Republican has previously said that he will close the border with Mexico from “day one” of his administration to curb “criminality”, associating it with migrants, a group he has described on several occasions as rapists, thieves or murderers.

From Mexico, politicians, businessmen and analysts have warned that implementing such a measure would only damage the economy of the North American region as a whole. Additionally, the president-elect has promised to carry out the largest deportation in history of migrants, undocumented or not, including their spouses, children and other related family members. Mexico already acts as a safe third country and accumulates on its northern border thousands of people waiting for asylum in the US.

Sheinbaum has added that, should such a scenario occur, she will ask Trump that migrants of nationalities other than Mexican be sent back to their countries of origin.

Several U.S. politicians have advocated for some years the designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups, which would empower their government to act beyond its territory, with the risk of encroaching on Mexico's sovereignty and straining the bilateral relationship to the maximum. Republican legislators are ready to pass such a law. In his first presidential term, Trump offered his then counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to send troops to Mexico to fight criminal groups, a proposal that was politely declined.

US-Mexico Trade Hits Record $415B in First Half of 2024

One of the Republican's concerns is containing the fentanyl epidemic that is killing thousands of Americans. During the last campaign, already as a Republican candidate, Trump declared that the cartels have the power to “remove the president in two minutes; they are the ones running Mexico.”

Trump's return to the White House represents a huge obstacle to President Sheinbaum's government plans. Her proposals to attract more investment through nearshoring, combat organized crime with social reintegration programs, and address immigration with a human rights perspective will run head-on into Trump's wall, which demands an iron fist and immediate results from Mexico.

This Sunday, the Republican referred to Sheinbaum, whom he defined as a “lovely woman”. “I was very hard on Mexico. I spoke to the new president, a woman who was charming and wonderful, President Sheinbaum, a wonderful woman. But I told her, 'You can't do this to our country,” Trump declared, referring to fentanyl coming in through the southern border. Much of Sheinbaum's six-year term will be marked by the pulse of the bilateral relationship with the US. The challenge will test the negotiating skills of the Mexican president, who has already shown much firmness before the Republican.