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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offered a public rebuke to Donald Trump on Tuesday, warning that the president-elect’s proposal for import tariffs would result in mutually assured economic destruction for both countries.
During a news conference, Sheinbaum read from a letter she said she planned to send to Trump, in which she warns that Mexico will retaliate with tariffs targeting U.S. imports if he follows through. Per The Washington Post, the U.S. conducts more trade with Mexico than any other country, importing $475 billion in goods from Mexico last year and exporting almost $323 billion. So Sheinbaum’s warning basically amounted to: “You don’t want these problems.”
Trump’s proposed tariffs would spark a trade war that escalates “until we put our common businesses at risk,” she warned in Spanish, per Reuters. She continued:
For example, Mexico’s main exporters to the U.S. are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company, which came to Mexico 80 years ago. Why put a tax on them that puts them at risk? It is not acceptable and would cause the U.S. and Mexico inflation and job losses.
Sheinbaum also effectively responded to Trump’s claim that Mexico is exporting crime and drugs into the U.S. For the record, crime has declined at a historic rate under the Biden administration. The Mexican president said:
Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours.
Even though Mexico’s cartels have distributed drugs such as fentanyl, the country has largely avoided an opioid epidemic like the one here. And Mexico has spent years seeking damages from U.S. gun manufacturers for the flood of American-made weapons that have fueled the violence there.
Considering Trump’s history of deriding Mexico and his documented aversion to powerful women, it seems likely Sheinbaum’s sober warning won't change Trump’s mind. After all, she’s essentially echoing things that some of the top economic experts in the U.S. have been saying for months.
But Mexico’s president suggested — at least, for now — that she’s not going to bend the knee to Trump. If it’s a trade war he wants, a trade war he may get — with all the collateral damage that comes with it.
Watch a clip of Sheinbaum’s remarks below: