The Washington Post Quotes Carin Zissis on Sheinbaum's Negotiations with Trump
The Washington Post Quotes Carin Zissis on Sheinbaum's Negotiations with Trump
"It has given her a global presence that is distinct," said the AS/COA Online editor-in-chief to the newspaper.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans poured into the country’s most important plaza on Sunday to cheer President Claudia Sheinbaum after she succeeded in one of the most daunting challenges in global politics: negotiating with Donald Trump.
The U.S. president on Thursday backed down on his plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian products “out of respect for President Sheinbaum,” he said. It was the second time in two months that the Mexican leader won a delay of the penalties. Supporters of Sheinbaum’s party, top business leaders, and ordinary citizens packed the capital’s iconic Zócalo on Sunday, chanting, “Mexico! Mexico!” in a sign of how the nation’s first female president has unified the population. Sheinbaum’s approval rating leaped from 70 percent when she took office in October to 85 percent last month, according to a poll by the newspaper El Financiero.
Politicians around the world, including the leaders of Ukraine, Colombia and Canada, have been upended in the riptide of Trump’s wrath. Sheinbaum, in contrast, has emerged from her encounters with the U.S. president “looking even and measured,” said Carin Zissis, a fellow at the Mexico Institute of the Wilson Center in Washington. “It has given her a global presence that is distinct.”
Sheinbaum has made significant concessions to Trump, sending 10,000 more troops to the border to deter fentanyl shipments and illegal migration — his stated reason for imposing the tariffs. She handed over 29 drug-cartel operatives in a massive operation involving 20 jets. But she hasn’t hesitated to challenge him, either...
Carin Zissis is editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online and fellow at the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.