Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum appeared willing on Tuesday to have a dialogue with President-elect Donald Trump, but warned that if the new US government imposes tariffs on Mexico, her administration will respond with a similar measure.
This was stated by Sheinbaum in a letter that he will send to Trump on Tuesday in which he expressed that “it is not with threats or tariffs that the immigration phenomenon or drug consumption in the United States will be addressed,” but he warned that “at a tariff will come another in response and so on until we put common companies at risk.”
The president stated that “cooperation and reciprocal understanding” is required to face these great challenges.
In a series of posts on his Truth Social social media platform, Trump said Monday that he would impose a 25% tax on all goods entering the country from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff on goods coming from China. .
The president-elect assured that the new tariffs would remain in effect “until we stop this invasion of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and all illegal aliens in our country.”
It is unclear whether Trump will actually carry out the threats or if he is using them as a negotiating tactic before taking office in January.
In disproving the arguments put forward by Trump, Sheinbaum said that according to figures from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), encounters with migrants on the southern US border have been reduced by 75%. from December 2023 to November of this year.
Likewise, the president highlighted the actions that the Mexican authorities have taken to combat fentanyl trafficking and recalled that synthetic drugs enter “illegally from Asian countries,” to which she stated that “international collaboration is urgent.”
If Trump’s threat materializes, the impact would be felt especially in the United States with a drastic increase in prices for various products, from gasoline and automobiles to agricultural products. But Mexico will not escape the economic consequences.
Cross-border trade between Mexico and the United States is going through its best moment, with transactions exceeding $800 billion annually.