President Claudia Sheinbaum held her Friday morning press conference in Acapulco, the largest city and most popular tourism destination in the state of Guerrero.
It was the second consecutive day that Sheinbaum held her mañanera outside Mexico City as she fronted the press in Cuernavaca on Thursday morning.
“It’s warm [here], not like yesterday in Cuernavaca where the air was cold,” the president said at the start of her press conference.
After presentations by various government officials on issues pertinent to Acapulco and the state of Guerrero, Sheinbaum fielded questions from reporters.
Sheinbaum’s call with Lula
Asked about her telephone conversation on Thursday with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Sheinbaum said that she and the Brazilian president spoke about “many issues.”
“We spoke about the situation in Latin America and the defense of sovereignty,” she said.
In a social media post, Lula wrote that he and Sheinbaum condemned “the [U.S.] attacks against Venezuelan sovereignty” during their call, and rejected “any view that might imply a return to the outdated division of the world into spheres of influence.”
While Mexico condemned the U.S. military’s intervention in Venezuela last Saturday, Sheinbaum noted that she explained to Lula that Mexico has a security “understanding” with the United States that it is currently “strengthening.”
She also acknowledged that the Brazilian president invited her to visit Brazil in May.
“I told him that we were going to consider [the invitation],” Sheinbaum said.
“He also told me that they’re doing very significant work to attend to [the problem of] violence against women, which they also have in Brazil. And I proposed that [Women’s Minister] Citlalli [Hernández] get in touch with them so that they know what we have done [in Mexico],” she said.
Sheinbaum responds to Trump’s remarks about ‘hitting’ cartels on land
While speaking about her call with Lula, Sheinbaum turned her attention to “the statements President Trump has made in recent days.”
She was specifically referring to Trump’s remarks to Fox News on Thursday.
“We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels,” the U.S. president said.
“The cartels are running Mexico; it’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country,” he added.
Sheinbaum played down the seriousness of Trump’s remarks, attributing them to his unique (and often hyperbolic) communication style.
“In short, we believe it’s part of his way of communicating, but, in any case, yesterday I asked Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente to make direct contact with the secretary of state,” she said, referring to Marco Rubio, who has spoken in positive terms about the security cooperation between Mexico and the United States.
“And if it’s necessary, we’ll speak to President Trump to strengthen [security] coordination within the framework that we’ve already explained on several occasions,” Sheinbaum said, referring to a framework premised on respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
On repeated occasions, the president has asserted that a U.S. attack against Mexican cartels on Mexican soil “won’t happen,” even after Trump said in November that “strikes in Mexico to stop drugs” were “OK” with him.
In light of the United States’ audacious intervention in Venezuela — and Trump’s remarks on Thursday — the likelihood of a U.S. military attack against cartels in Mexico, six of which the U.S. government has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, certainly appears to have increased.
In what would amount to an attempt to stave off such a possibility, Sheinbaum stressed that her government is willing to “further strengthen the [security] relationship” with the United States and “strengthen coordination” on security matters.
She didn’t specify how bilateral coordination could be strengthened, but offering one example of the current security collaboration between Mexico and the United States, Sheinbaum noted that the Mexican Navy maintains contact with the U.S. Coast Guard “in case a vessel or boat approaches [Mexican waters] so that it can be apprehended through coordinated efforts, without the need for force.”
She subsequently stressed that her government wants to maintain its security cooperation with the Trump administration, before declaring: “We don’t want to think about any other scenario.”
During the current Trump administration, the United States has flown drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels and hunt for fentanyl labs in missions that Sheinbaum says were requested by her government.
She is steadfastly opposed to any unilateral, unrequested U.S. mission in Mexico, as such an action would violate the sovereignty of a country that hasn’t forgotten the consequences of past U.S. interventions, including the loss of vast swathes of its territory to its northern neighbor in 1848.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
