4 Keys to Claudia Sheinbaum’s strategy to negotiate with Trump (beyond tariffs)

The president put the tariffs of 25% to the imports of Mexico – which would be an unprecedented blow to the economies of both countries, but especially from Mexico, which exports 80% of its production to that country – on the grounds that There is a border security crisis that allows fentanyl and migrants traffic to the north.

But after the conversation with Sheinbaum on Monday, Trump agreed to suspend tariffs for a month in exchange for the president sending 10,000 National Guard agents to the border.

Any connoisseur of the subject knows that, judging by history, Mexico does not have much maneuvering margin in front of a counterpart that is larger and more powerful.

Eight years ago, for example, Trump put 5% tariffs on Mexican exports and then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had no choice but to access militarize the migratory issue.

But this time Trump comes with a more drastic agenda and that is why it is expected that the threats of military tariffs or incursions against the massive posters or deportations of Mexicans return sooner rather than later.

That said, the first impasse was overcome. And the strategy that Sheinbaum used to attend him, the same one that probably uses from now on, combines several fronts we analyze here.

Since Trump was elected, and the alarms were caught in Mexico due to the hard agenda against the neighboring country raised by the Republican in the campaign, Sheinbaum has made different calls for calm.

“There will be a good relationship,” he said the day after the election. “We are prepared, we are ready,” he said when he swore on January 20. “You don’t have to accelerate,” he said last week. “Serenity and patience,” he added.

And this Monday, at the press conference after the conversation, they asked him how the deal with Trump was, and she, despite the remarkable ideological and style distance, said: “I do not want to qualify it, all the presidents deserve respect, I do not I would like to enter a personal issue. “

On Saturday, when his most vehement version was seen before the tariffs, Sheinbaum said: “It is not with the imposition of tariffs as problems solve, but speaking and dialoguing.”

The president spoke and, at least for now, managed to avoid tariffs that would generate a recession in Mexico.

Sheinbaum, like all his predecessors in the past, had to give in to Washington’s desire, which in the last decade, partly because of Trump’s political effect, has been accentuating his concern about the entry of migrants into the country.

In that sense, he announced the deployment of 10,000 national guard to the border. She said it was to stop drug trafficking; Trump added that it was for migrants.

In any case, it will be for both. And the question is whether this time will be different from the past, when the human rights of hundreds of migrants were violated.

Sheinbaum, just in case, promised that it will not be so.

And while yielding in Trump’s priority theme, Sheinbaum has sent messages to his bases: “Sovereignty is not negotiable,” he said on Saturday; “The treatment has to be among the same,” he added on Monday.

Their critics, however, ensure that the militarization of the border and the migratory issue are precisely ways of giving sovereignty, as did all their predecessors, including López Obrador.

Sheinbaum’s rhetoric firmness, however, did not stay in nationalist messages: he has also put on the table the fact that, according to the US Department of Justice, 75% of the weapons used by Mexican posters are sold by US companies.

An issue that usually goes unnoticed for presidents in Washington and in which AMLO had emphasized with an “unprecedented” demand from his government in 2021 against arms companies of the neighboring country.

In her press conference on Monday, the president also assured, with a perhaps ironic smile, that she had proposed to Trump to review her public health policy to address the crisis of drug use, which is, according to her, what is behind of fentanyl traffic.

As a teacher converted into politics, Sheinbaum has a special tendency to plan and manage diagnoses with the rigor of a laureate academic.

That is why part of his response to Trump’s arrival to power has been detailed containment plans.

One is, for example, in immigration matters: it is called “Mexico hugs you” and expects, on the one hand, to attend migrants who are in danger of deportation in the US with legal assistance programs, and on the other Bonds, scholarships, insurance and other social benefits to those who end up returning to Mexico.

“To the Mexican brothers and sisters I want to tell you that here is their president and an entire town to defend them,” he said in a video on Sunday. “If you want to return to Mexico, here we hug them,” he said as he put his hands on his shoulders in fraternity.

In addition to the plan for migrants, Sheinbaum developed an ambitious economic plan, the Mexico Plan, which seeks to reindustrialize the Mexican economy and atar foreign investments with the objective, not precisely declared, to depend less on the exchange with the US, so volatile now With Trump on the other side.

Ebrard, the Secretary of Economy, has met dozens of entrepreneurs from both countries in recent days. Sheinbaum announced that the idea is to continue collaborating with the private sector.

During the weekend Trump published a graph of the number of meetings of US authorities with undocumented migrants on the border on which a 94% decrease is recorded from the arrival of the Republican to power.

“The graph that President Trump has been uploading to his social networks about the decrease in migration was prepared by my work team, which has been constantly communicating with his,” Sheinbaum revealed on Sunday.

Viri Ríos, a Mexican analyst, wrote appropriate in his Millennium column: “The Mexican team has complete awareness that the main way to appease Trump is not through successful public policies, but through the implementation of actions that allow him to give spectacular ads and extraordinary messages. “

Seen today, 25% tariffs on Saturday seem more a Trump gesture than a concrete measure; A form of the bettor to get to the negotiation. Who knows it knows that this is a classic movement of the Trumpist manual.

And Sheinbaum, apparently, knows who he is trying. That is why he reiterates on what is coming: “I am convinced that we are going to reach many agreements.”

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