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Trump said Scheinbaum “agreed to stop the flow of immigrants to the United States through Mexico,” the Associated Press reported. But Sheinbaum said on social media that she told Trump that Mexico was already “addressing” the migrant caravan, calling it a “very good conversation.” “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close the border, but to build bridges between governments and between peoples,” Sheinbaum said.
Mexican President Sheinbaum also warned that if U.S. President-elect Trump insists on implementing the proposed 25% comprehensive tariff, 400,000 U.S. jobs will be lost, and she threatened retaliation.
While the status of the proposed tariffs is unclear, Trump posted on his Truth Social account that they would “effectively close our southern border.” He called it a “very productive conversation.”
The exchange between the two leaders seemed to convince Trump that there was value in threatening to disrupt trade with import taxes. His initial social media posts rocked financial markets and prompted a swift response from him, which he quickly described as a victory. Even if the proposed tariffs fail to materialize, Trump can tell his supporters that the mere possibility of these tariffs is an effective policy tool and he continues to rely on the threat of tariffs.
Scheinbaum wrote on social media that the two leaders “discussed Mexico’s strategy on immigration and I told Trump that the caravan would not arrive at the northern border with the United States because Mexico was taking care of them.” She said: “We also talked about increasing cooperation on security issues within a sovereign framework and our ongoing efforts to prevent the consumption and trafficking of fentanyl.”
The decline in illegal immigration across the Mexican border is due in part to the increased cooperation the Biden administration has received from Mexico — something Trump seemed to celebrate as a credit to him.
The number of refugees arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border is down 40% from a record high in December. U.S. officials largely attribute this to Mexican vigilance at rail yards and highway checkpoints.
Over the past few years, Mexican authorities, under pressure from the United States to prevent migrants from heading north, have begun rounding up migrants across the country and sending them to southern Mexico, a move that experts say is intended to wear down the migrants until they give up.
The Associated Press said that neither Trump nor Scheinbaum clarified the specifics of the tariffs. But imposing tariffs could lead to higher prices, slower economic growth and could even undermine the trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico reached in 2020 when Trump was in office.
Trump said on Monday that as one of his first executive orders after taking office on January 20, he would impose a 25% tariff on all products entering the United States from Canada and Mexico. He also proposed imposing an additional 10% tariff on Chinese exports of materials used to produce fentanyl.
In announcing his plan, he castigated fentanyl and immigrants illegally entering the United States, even as apprehensions at the U.S. southern border have hovered at their lowest level in four years.
On Wednesday, Trump also tweeted that he planned to launch a large-scale advertising campaign to explain “the dangers of fentanyl to people” and expected that this would make people understand “how terrible this drug really is.”
This dangerously powerful opioid was originally developed to treat severe pain caused by conditions such as cancer, but is increasingly being mixed with other drugs in the illicit drug supply. As of September, the United States imported $378.9 billion worth of goods from Mexico, $322.2 billion worth of goods from China, and $309.3 billion worth of goods from Canada.
Reuters/AP
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