President-elect Donald Trump claims to have had a “productive” conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo a day after she published a scathing open letter to him about migration, fentanyl trafficking and tariffs.
“Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She has agreed to stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our southern border.”
Trump continued: “We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, US consumption of these drugs. It was very productive.”
“Mexico will stop people from going to our southern border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!”
On Monday, Trump announced his intentions to sign executive orders imposing tariffs on imported goods from Mexico, China and Canada.
Mexico and Canada would see 25 per cent tariffs on goods, while China would face an additional 10 per cent tariff on merchandise. Trump announced the proposals in effort to get the countries to do more about the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the US.
But Sheinbaum clapped back, explaining to Trump in her letter that half of the migrants arriving at the border do so through the CBP One program and called the drug crisis a “public health and consumption problem within your society.”
“President Trump, migration and drug consumption in the United States cannot be addressed through threats or tariffs,” she wrote. “What is needed is cooperation and mutual understanding to tackle these significant challenges. For every tariff, there will be a response in kind.”
She concluded by calling for a meeting between Mexico and the US “to continue building joint solutions.” Following Trump’s Wednesday announcement, Sheinbaum issued her own statement on X.
“I had an excellent conversation with President Donald Trump,” she said. “We discussed Mexico’s strategy on the migration phenomenon and I shared that caravans are not arriving at the northern border because they are being taken care of in Mexico.
“We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to maintain bridges between governments and people.”
In October, US Customs and Border Protection announced the number of people who crossed the border without making contact with the agency dropped 60 per cent from 2023 to 2024. On the northern border, the agency has expanded enforcement efforts that lowered border patrol encounters by 50 percent from June to September.
The call between the leaders was reminiscent of a conversation Trump had a week after taking office for the first time with then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2017 in which he told him to stop telling the press Mexico would not be paying for a wall along the US southern border.
Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, who has covered Trump extensively told CNN she did not know what to make of the conversation on Wednesday.
“[Trump] has made statements like that before when he was president and it didn’t actually amount to the closure of a border,” she told the outlet. “You know, it comes a day after he made some very aggressive tariff threat against Mexico and Canada. And so, I think that’s probably not a coincidence, although who knows?”
Trump tends to hold unstructured and informal calls with world leaders, she said.
“So, who knows what actually happened in that call?” she added. “At some point, we may find out, but everything with him is the opening bid of a negotiation. And I look at this, plus the tariff threat, most likely as a combined push toward Mexico to try to get what he wants.”
