The "Friendly" Hurl Between Claudia Sheinbaum And Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump has agreed to delay the 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico for a month. The two countries will hold “negotiations” during the time. Trump said he would “immediately pause the anticipated tariffs.” The said tariffs were to come into effect from Tuesday.
The last-minute change in the motion came after a “friendly” phone call between Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. During the call, Sheinbaum agreed to send 10,000 members of the National Guard to the US-Mexican border to “prevent the trafficking of drugs, in particular fentanyl, from Mexico to the US.”
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She said Washington has in turn agreed to increase measures to prevent the trafficking of high-powered US weapons into Mexico.
Taking to her X handle, the Mexican president said she had a “good conversation with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty” with Trump.
Earlier, the White House said that President Trump’s “bold action” was to hold Mexico “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.” China and Canada were also on the list of the Republican’s tariff threat.
Trump said the phone conversation with Sheinbaum was “very friendly,” a completely different tone from his previous addressing of the Mexican government.
She also said that the country’s plan B, should US tariffs come into force, has been shelved for now. In her X post, she said she had told her economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, “to implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defence of Mexico’s interests.” Laughing off the situation, she told reporters that when Trump asked her how long they should pause the tariffs for, she had answered “forever.”
Though Trump has not completely ruled out the tariff threat, Sheinbaum said she was confident “during this month we’ll be able to deliver good results for his [Trump’s] people and the people of Mexico.”
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Sheinbaum slammed Trump’s accusation of the Mexican government having an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking gangs. Slamming the comment as “slander,” she said, “We categorically reject the slander made by the White House against the Mexican government about alliances with criminal organisations.”
“If there is such an alliance anywhere, it is in the U.S. gun shops that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups,” she added.
Hitting further on, she said, “If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious consumption of fentanyl in their country, they can combat the sale of narcotics on the streets of their main cities, which they don’t do, and the money laundering generated by this illegal activity that has done so much harm to their population.”
Sheinbaum said, “Problems are not solved by imposing tariffs, but by talking.”
Sheinbaum also hit back at Google in changing the name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America at the word of Trump. She then demanded that she want the United States to be identified as “America Mexicana.” When Trump unilaterally decreed an executive order after coming back to the Oval Office, that the Gulf of Mexico will henceforth be known as the “Gulf of America,” the tech giant quickly agreed to comply on its Google Maps.
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Taking to its X, Google said the move was in line with its “longstanding practice of applying name changes” when they have simply been “updated in official government sources.” According to the platform, Americans will see the “Gulf of America” on their Google Maps, Mexico will see the “Gulf of Mexico,” and the rest of the world will see both.
In a letter addressed to Google, Sheinbaum objected to the move. She said if Google is so condescending in changing names on its maps, she wants the United States identified as América Mexicana. She then recognised that she has no authority to do so, just as Trump has no power to switch the name of the Gulf of Mexico, she noted.
Citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, she also noted that Washington cannot unilaterally change the name of a body of water that it shares with Cuba and Mexico, because as per the UN, an individual country’s sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles from the coastline.
