If the contact was anything like the Trump-Sheinbaum phone call that clearly was about migration, it would seem the two leaders have diametrically opposed versions of what was said.
Following the phone conversation late Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter to assert that the Mexican president has promised to cease immigration to his country as well as to America.
“Spoke with the new President of Mexico last day, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. In her statement, she has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico and into the United States, sealing off the Southern Border, Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social. “They were able to discuss their options and reach the conclusion of the matter in a short time.”
Sheinbaum’s account of the events was different than that of Trump.
“When speaking to President Trump, I told him about the integrated approach that Mexico has taken to address the issue of migration while preserving human rights,” she said on X. “We reaffirm that Mexico’s stance is not to shut doors but rather to open gates between government and citizens.”
Before that, Sheinbaum said she ‘had an excellent talk with President Donald Trump’.
In the post, she said to him, “I told him that caravans are not coming to the northern border because they are being provided for in Mexico.”
The telephone conversation was scheduled soon after Trump stated that his administration would put new tariffs on import goods from Mexico, Canada and China starting on Jan. 20.
On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he will force Mexico and Canada to pay a 25% Tariff on every product entering the US to combat the ‘fentanyl bombers.’
The tariff will be kept in place until “Drugs, in particular Fentanyl and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”, Trump said.
The Mexican president also responded to the proposed tariffs in a letter to Trump on Tuesday saying that he wants a “mutual collaboration” to address these problems. ‘Drug use cannot be addressed through threats or tariffs,’ she said, in a translation of the letter from the Mexican Embassy.
Sheinbaum, a physicist and climate scientist, was elected this year, and is part of the Mexican Morena party, which was created by AMLO, her predecessor.
Sheinbaum pledged to fulfill López Obrador’s largest promises, including the fight against record levels of violence by adhering to his “embrace, not guns” strategy that avoids confronting criminal groups that have taken over vast swathes of Mexico as they wage war to control supply routes for drugs to the United States and make money from human smuggling and kidnapping to fund their businesses.
