Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pulled no punches on Tuesday when she sent her reply to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of a sweeping 25% tariff on her country unless she stops illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the U.S.
Sheinbaum made clear in her letter that she believes the flow of immigrants crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S. has already been greatly reduced and that the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. is fueling the drug cartel violence in Mexico.
She also said that Trump’s plan doesn’t actually address illegal immigration or drug trafficking and that Mexico would retaliate with tariffs of its own. “One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” she said, warning the outcome would cause inflation and unemployment in the U.S. and Mexico.
“Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours,” Sheinbaum added.
She also told Trump that “encounters at the Mexico–United States border have decreased by 75% between December 2023 and November 2024.” Trump’s Monday night post on Truth Social concluded by saying, “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular, Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
The Guardian questioned if Trump would even be able to impose such tariffs under the trade deal his administration brokered during his first term. “It is unclear if the president-elect’s proposal would even be legal or possible, given that the three countries share a free trade agreement known as the USMCA that was negotiated during his previous term in the White House. But as analysts pointed out, Trump has never been one to abide by the rules,” wrote the Guardian.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, replied with a much more conciliatory message. “This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters Tuesday. “One of the really important things is that we be all pulling together on this.”
Trudeau called an emergency meeting of the provincial leaders for Wednesday to address Trump’s threat. The New York Times reported that “Doug Ford, a Progressive Conservative and the premier of Ontario, the most populous province and the center of manufacturing in Canada, said that the announcement by Mr. Trump felt ‘like a family member stabbing you right in the heart.’”