Getty ImagesMexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has sought to clarify details of a conversation she had with US President-elect Donald Trump, after the two leaders offered differing accounts of the call.
Following Wednesday’s call, Trump said Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border”.
This prompted Sheinbaum to say she had merely reiterated Mexico’s position, which she said was “not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and people”.
The call followed Trump’s announcement on Monday that, upon taking office in January, he would slap an across-the-board tariff of 25% on Mexico and Canada, and a 10% tariff on China.
Getty ImagesHe said the import duties on Mexico and Canada would only be removed once illegal immigration and drug trafficking to the US had stopped.
The announcement was initially met with combative language from President Sheinbaum, who vowed earlier on Wednesday to retaliate if the US triggered a trade war.
“If there are US tariffs, Mexico would also raise tariffs,” she said of the proposed duties, which appear to breach the USMCA trade deal that Trump himself struck in 2018 during his first presidency between the US, Mexico and Canada.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Mexican president said she did not specifically discuss tariffs in the phone call with Trump but that they had addressed immigration and fentanyl trafficking – the reasons Trump had named for imposing the tariffs in the first place.
She said she had reassured him that a migrant caravan he had expressed concern about was “not going to reach the [northern] Mexican frontier” with the US but she stressed that “it has never been our plan to close the border with the US”.
Sheinbaum insisted that the conversation had been “very amiable” and that they had agreed they would “continue with our talks”.
In what appeared an altogether more conciliatory tone compared to her initial reaction to Trump’s import tax announcement, she also insisted there was now “no possibility of a tariff war” between Mexico and the US.
The flow of migrants from Mexico in the US has long overshadowed relations between the two neighbours and became a defining issue in the 2024 White House election race that culminated in Trump’s resounding victory this month.
Under US diplomatic pressure, Mexico has been conducting its largest ever migrant crackdown, bussing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country’s south, far from the US border.
But Trump campaigned on a promise to seal the US-Mexico border and his threat to impose 25% tariffs was seen as an attempt to force Mexico into doing more to stop the migrants from reaching the US southern border.
The Mexican government has in turn demanded that the US take action to stop the flow of weapons being smuggled from the US into Mexico.
Sheinbaum told reporters on Thursday that she would raise the issue of guns with Trump “in due time”.
