Sheinbaum Counters Trump's Tariffs with a "Cool Head" and a Focus on Continental Trade
Sheinbaum Counters Trump's Tariffs with a "Cool Head" and a Focus on Continental Trade
The Mexican president has balanced how to talk to both the U.S. administration and her domestic base, said AS/COA's Carin Zissis to The Globe and Mail.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum received news of U.S. tariffs on automobile imports with her usual calm demeanor. At her morning news conference last week, she said, “Of course we disagree with this unilateral decision on tariffs,” but then spoke optimistically about continental free trade. “What are we doing? We’re trying with the U.S. government to strengthen the USMCA,” she said.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s popularity has soared as she adroitly deals with U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs—assuming a reassuring tone with her people, refusing to overreact to Mr. Trump’s provocations and continuously promising to co-operate with a mercurial counterpart.
Ms. Sheinbaum has stoked Mexican nationalism, too, without targeting Mr. Trump or indulging anti-American rhetoric. And she appears to have even charmed the U.S. president, who told reporters, “President Sheinbaum is a woman I like very much.”
Still, Ms. Sheinbaum can respond pointedly. She demands U.S. actions on the guns flooding south into Mexico and arming drug cartels. She questions U.S. societal shortcomings, too, such as fentanyl addiction, saying Mexico is helping in the fight against drug smuggling for “humanitarian” reasons and insisting—without offering proof—that strong families and a rich culture have spared her country from a similar scourge.
“She does this balancing act of figuring out how to talk to the Trump administration and then how to talk to her base in Mexico as well, so it doesn’t look like she’s capitulating,” said Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief at AS/COA Online, a publication of Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
