Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, was under a giant Mexican flag and before troops in a military establishment in Mexico. It was the flag day last month and used her speech as an opportunity, virtual and literally, a rally around her.
“Mexico must be respected,” he said, adding later: “His people are brave. We know that when people unite us around their history, their country and their flag, there is no power in the world that can break their spirit.”
Times had changed, he said: Mexico will not succumb to foreign governments.
Given the circumstances – President Trump’s abrupt invoices approved the first minutes of Tuesday – Ms Sheinbaum’s perspectives were appropriate. As Mr Trump is targeting Mexico again, using the invoice hammer as a negotiation tool, a sense of Mexican nationalism has been strengthened.
The Mexican government and businesses have rekindled a “Made in Mexico” campaign. Some Mexicans have requested boycott from US companies and products, while others have gathered lists of Mexican shops and brands to support instead of American.
Mrs Sheinbaum often appears on the front page of local newspapers with members of the country’s army or in front of a giant Mexican flag. Private companies have received nationalist ads, one that characterizes the president who drives the masses and bears a banner saying, “Mexico United has never won!”
And Mrs Sheinbaum, who is trying to balance a pro-mexico drumbeat, supporting the cooperative dialogue with US officials, has seen approval ratings grow to 80 %, according to one poll. She not only succeeded one popular president, Andres Manuel López Obrador, who reformed Mexican politics and was her mentor, but has come to her own time in a time of global turmoil under Mr Trump.
“There is great support for the president now,” said Juan Manuel Sánchez, a 57 -year -old craftsman in the city of Mexico, who also praised Ms Sheinbaum’s suppression of drug trafficking.
During his first term, Mr Trump used invoices to renegotiate the North America free trading agreement and to reach a new US-Mexico-Canada agreement, which he signed in 2020.
A month ago, Mr Trump signed an executive order requesting 25 % invoices for Mexican imports. But less than a day before they came into force, Mr Trump and Ms Sheinbaum spoke on the phone and announced an agreement on their delay for 30 days.
Under the terms of this agreement, Mexico published an additional 10,000 troops of the Mexican National Guard on the border to help the flow of Fentanyl and immigrants to the United States. In return, Mrs Sheinbaum said, the US government will work to stop the flow of weapons in Mexico.
Although the number of migratory crossings on the southern border has fallen to once unimaginable levels since Mr Trump took over in January, Mexican officials significantly discouraged immigration in the United States’ months before. Last week, Mexico sent nearly 30 top Cartel partners who wanted by the US authorities in the United States, one of the largest such transfers in the history of the drug war.
“There is a lot of unity in the country in view of what is happening,” including Mr Trump’s financial threats, Ms Sheinbaum said on Monday, just hours before the entry into force of invoices.
Although Mr Trump insisted on Monday that the invoices would start the next day, the cloud over Mexico from the north has surpassed its most recent presidential campaign. This has led to uncertainty and frustration, but also a boost of national pride.
Agustin Barrios Gómez, a former Mexican Congress and a founding member of the non -profit Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, said that even Mexicans who did not vote for Ms. Sheinbaum “understand that now, the national interest of Mexico – beyond our politics.
One reason for supporting her, said Barrios Gómez, was to ensure that Ms Sheinbaum had enough political capital in the country to be in a stronger negotiating position with Mr Trump to come.
Nationalism is complicated in Mexico, Mr Barrios Gómez said because it is so complex with the United States geographical, culturally and economically, as well as with immigration and security.
“We are not neighbors. We are roommates,” he said. In other words, analysts said, US invoices against Mexico will harm both economies, as well as the mutual invoices proposed by Mrs Sheinbaum. (Mr Trump also threatens 25 % invoices to global steel and aluminum imports that would affect Mexico.)
For Mexico, the subversion point against the United States has not been reached, Mr Barrios Gómez said late last week before the invoices are in place, but “if you call your enemy enough, you may turn them into one”.
The ghost of a trade war between countries has changed the perception of Mr Trump’s Mexico and his relationship with the United States.
According to the Mexican BuendÃa & Marquéz electoral firm, the number of respondents in Mexico believed that the relationship between Ms Sheinbaum and Mr Trump was at least a significant significant reduction between last November and February, while the number of respondents had a negative view. January.
However, Mr Trump praised Mrs Sheinbaum as a “wonderful woman” while fooling Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Mr Trudeau, who has become more and more popular at home, is entering his last days, while Ms Sheinbaum’s popular foundation is stronger. She has heard of winning elections last summer and began her six -year term in October.
During a Monday morning press conference, Mrs Sheinbaum once again called for the tranquility before Mr Trump’s invoices and said he was hoping to reach a last -minute agreement, which was not implemented. “Obviously we don’t want to be invoices,” she said, adding that her government would respond.
Since before Mr Trump’s inauguration, its administration promotes what it calls “Mexico’s plan”, a strategy aimed at diversifying its economy to become less dependent on the United States, to revitalize Mexican production and promote the country to become one of its top 10 economies. (It is today the 15th largest, according to the International Monetary Fund.)
As part of this effort, Ms Sheinbaum’s administration began the route “Made in Mexico”, in which a formal stamp is placed on products made in the country that meet certain requirements. The stamp, depicting an eagle of Mexico, was created in 1978 to promote Mexican goods and has been revived by presidents over the years.
As the endangered US invoices stopped a month ago, Mexico’s Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told companies that the government wanted to once again push the stamp “Made in Mexico”.
Last week, Walmart Mexico, the largest private employer in the country with 200,000 employees, presented its efforts to put the stamp “made in Mexico” – with the additional word “proud” – in the corridors of its 3,000 stores across the country. Although Walmart is an American brand, Javier Treviño, a senior Vice President of Walmart Mexico’s corporate affairs, said the company wanted to show customers that it was a Mexican entity and that most of the products they sell are made in the nation.
The campaign “is very important to us because we need to boost investment and confidence in Mexico and ensure that the economy can grow because the environment is not easy,” Mr Treviño, a former Mexican adviser, said in an interview.
Other large companies have been integrated into the Mrs Sheinbaum impetus, including Grupo Modelo, the giant brewing that is making Corona and Modelo Beers, which announced that it would put new “made in Mexico” in bottles.
On Saturday, Mr. Sánchez, the craftsman of the city of Mexico, was in his neighborhood market, which, he said, proved that he prefers to shop locally. Prior to Mr Trump’s invoices, he said he could consider the boycott of American companies and products if they did.
Unlike Canada, where locals avoid American products and buy more Canadian flags since Mr Trump threatened invoices, Mr Sánchez said the Mexicans were already nationalist and that most had flags.
“But when something is very serious here,” he said, “all united.”
Maria Abi-Habibi He contributed a report from the city of Mexico.
