With the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States less than seven weeks away, Mexico is preparing – or, some might say, bracing – for the return of Donald Trump.
Ahead of his return to the White House, Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican exports to the United States and pledged to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
The latter promise – and especially the possibility of it becoming reality – was a key focus of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s morning press conference on Thursday.
Among other remarks at her Thursday mañanera, Sheinbaum recalled the period of her life when she lived as an immigrant in the United States.
Feds and border states to plan for possible US mass deportations
Sheinbaum noted that all state governors will attend a security meeting with federal officials in Acapulco next week.
She indicated that on the sidelines of that meeting, the governors of Mexico’s six northern border states – Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas – will gather with federal officials to discuss Donald Trump’s stated plan to carry out a mass deportation operation.
Sheinbaum said that the federal government will come to an agreement with the northern border states over “how to receive our compatriots in case of a mass deportation” of Mexican immigrants currently living in the United States.
“We hope that it doesn’t happen, but if it does happen we’ll be prepared to welcome them,” she said.
Mexico’s former foreign affairs minister and current Environment Minister Alicia Bárcena said in February that there were 5.3 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States.
Trump confirmed last month that he plans to use the U.S. military to carry out his proposed mass deportation plan.
Mexico hopes for agreement with Trump to avoid receiving non-Mexicans
Sheinbaum told reporters that Mexico currently has an agreement with the Biden administration under which the United States sends deportees “of many nationalities” on direct flights to their countries of origin.
She said that Mexico has a “caring” attitude toward “everyone,” but stressed that its “main” job is to receive Mexicans who are deported from the United States.
Sheinbaum said that her government hopes to reach an agreement with the Trump administration so that most non-Mexican deportees continue to be sent to their countries of origin.
Reuters reported Thursday that “Mexico has played a key role in implementing U.S. immigration policy in recent years, accepting migrants from countries to which the U.S. struggles to deport people, such as Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.”
The news agency also noted that the man tapped to be Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in late October that “sending migrants to other countries, including Mexico, would be an option.”
‘I never stopped participating in the transformation of my country’
Near the end of her press conference, the president noted that she lived in northern California for four years in the early 1990s while completing a doctorate at UC Berkeley.
“I had the opportunity to live four years outside of Mexico. … I always dedicated myself to academia, but I never stopped participating in the transformation of my country,” said Sheinbaum, who says her government is now building the “second story” of the so-called “fourth transformation” initiated by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
She told reporters that she participated in protests in the United States that were aimed at pressuring the Mexican government to give Mexicans abroad the right to vote in Mexican elections.
Sheinbaum also noted that she attended protests ahead of the entry into force of NAFTA in 1994.
“We thought that the agreement had to be fair and include good salaries for Mexicans,” she said of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The president displayed on a screen the front page of the Oct. 1, 1991 edition of The Stanford Daily newspaper, which included a photograph of her protesting against then Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari at Stanford University.
Sheinbaum, 29 at the time, was holding up a sign that read: “Fair trade and democracy now!!”
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
