Mexico is showing the World how to stand up to Donald Trump’s bullying

Left Coalition President Sheinbaum is negotiating with U.S. on trade deal with dignity

- BY KURT HACKBARTH

On Sunday, March 9, over 350,000 people crammed into Mexico City’s central square, the Zocalo, in repudiation of US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. Just days before, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the reaching of an agreement which, under the cover of the United States~MexicoCanada Agreement (USMCA), would exempt Mexico from most of the levies.

“Fortunately, dialogue has prevailed and, especially, respect between our nations,” Sheinbaum told the crowd. Sure enough, when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, both Mexico and Canada had been excluded.

The tariff dispute, however, has only proved to be an opening skirmish in the testy relationship with Mexico that has developed since. After making similar tariff threats in his first term, Trump declared victory, pocketed his concessions on immigration, and largely left the country alone. This time around, however, the administration — spurred by the reckless, nativist rage of his coterie — has taken the opportunity to ratchet up tensions again and again. This, in turn, has put to the test President Sheinbaum’s approach of handling her erratic counterpart with her now famous cabezafria, or “cool head.”

Acursory summary will be enough to paint the picture. On March 21, for the first time since a treaty governing shared watersheds was signed in 1944, the United States denied a Mexican request for water, in this case for the city of Tijuana. After several weeks of back-andforth, the dispute was settled at the end of April. On May 11, the United States announced the suspension of livestock imports from Mexico due to the detection of New World screwworm (NWS) inthe south of the country, to the visible frustration of Agriculture Secretary Julio Berdegué, who reminded the United States of its failure to respond to requests to assist in containing the northward march of the pest when it resurfaced in Panama back in 2023. As of this writing, the ban remains in effect