Skip to Content Facebook Feature Image

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

News

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico
News

News

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

2024-11-12 00:03 Last Updated At:00:10

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is facing a second Donald Trump presidency, and few countries can match its experience as a target of Trump's rhetoric: There have been threats to close the border, impose tariffs and even send U.S. forces to fight Mexican drug cartels if the country doesn’t do more to stem the flow of migrants and drugs.

That’s not to mention what mass deportations of migrants who are in the U.S. illegally could do to remittances — the money sent home by migrants — that have become one of Mexico’s main sources of income.

More Images
FILE - Migrants line up at the Paso del Norte international bridge to present to U.S. agents documents requesting an appointment to apply for asylum, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez, File)

FILE - Migrants line up at the Paso del Norte international bridge to present to U.S. agents documents requesting an appointment to apply for asylum, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez, File)

FILE - Newly-named Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard makes a “you go first” gesture to incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum, as they exit a press conference where Sheinbaum presented six members of her Cabinet, in Mexico City, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

FILE - Newly-named Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard makes a “you go first” gesture to incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum, as they exit a press conference where Sheinbaum presented six members of her Cabinet, in Mexico City, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

FILE - Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena, left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, June 3, 2019, as part of a Mexican delegation in Washington for talks following trade tariff threats from the Trump Administration. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena, left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, June 3, 2019, as part of a Mexican delegation in Washington for talks following trade tariff threats from the Trump Administration. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - Cars exit the General Motors assembly plant in Villa de Reyes, outside San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Jan. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Cars exit the General Motors assembly plant in Villa de Reyes, outside San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Jan. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - An SUV model built in Mexico for Chinese state-owned automaker JAC Motors is presented in the country's first JAC showroom, in Naucalpan, on the outskirts of Mexico City, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - An SUV model built in Mexico for Chinese state-owned automaker JAC Motors is presented in the country's first JAC showroom, in Naucalpan, on the outskirts of Mexico City, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Justice employees hold up cutouts of Supreme Court justices in a show of support as they discuss a draft ruling that proposes the partial invalidation of the judicial reform approved by Congress, in Mexico City, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

FILE - Justice employees hold up cutouts of Supreme Court justices in a show of support as they discuss a draft ruling that proposes the partial invalidation of the judicial reform approved by Congress, in Mexico City, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum smiles as she holds the staff of office during a rally in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum smiles as she holds the staff of office during a rally in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump signs a new North American trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, at the White House in Washington, Jan. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump signs a new North American trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, at the White House in Washington, Jan. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, left, and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, left, and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

FILE - Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left, and President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left, and President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

But as much as this second round looks like the first round — when Mexico pacified Trump by quietly ceding to his immigration demands — circumstances have changed, and not necessarily for the better. Today, Mexico has in Claudia Sheinbaum a somewhat stern leftist ideologue as president, and Trump is not known for handling such relations well.

Back in 2019, Mexico’s then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a charismatic, plain-spoken, folksy leader who seemed to understand Trump, because both had a transactional view of politics: You give me what I want, I’ll give you what you want. The two went on to form a chummy relationship.

But while López Obrador was forged in the give-and-take politics of the often-corrupt former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Sheinbaum grew up in a family of leftist activists and got her political experience in radical university student movements.

“Claudia is more ideological than López Obrador, and so the problem is that I see her potentially responding to Trumpian policies, whether it’s, you know, organized crime or immigration or tariffs with a much more nationalistic, jingoistic view of the relationship,” said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S. from 2007 to 2013.

Sheinbaum made a point of being one of the first world leaders to call Trump on Thursday to congratulate him after the election, but during the call Trump did two things that may say a lot about how things will go.

First, Sheinbaum said, Trump quickly brought up the border to remind her there were issues there. Then he asked Sheinbaum to send his greetings to López Obrador, with whom Trump said he had “a very good relationship.” That might suggest that Trump believes that López Obrador — the new president's political mentor — is still in charge, a view shared by some analysts.

Sarukhan said he believes the fact that Sheinbaum is a woman and is from Mexico will be "a very important challenge, an issue out there as both of them get going in their relationship.”

There's little likelihood that Trump will get caught up in other issues and just forget about Mexico. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, said Trump had been given "a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”

Not everything has changed for the worse: Cross-border trade has topped $800 billion per year and U.S. companies are more dependent than ever on Mexican plants.

But the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA, is coming up for review, and Mexico has made legal changes that Trump could seize on to demand a re-negotiation of parts of the deal.

Sheinbaum has suggested Mexico won't give in even if backed into a corner, saying “we obviously are going to address any problems that come up with dialogue, as a collaborative process, and if not, we are going to stand up, we are prepared to do that with great unity.”

Standing up hasn’t worked particularly well before. In 2018, Marcelo Ebrard was Mexico’s top diplomat; former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Ebrard basically bent to U.S. demands to keep asylum seekers in Mexico and accept migrants back even if they weren’t Mexicans.

Ebrard just asked that the deal not be made public to avoid embarrassing López Obrador, Pompeo wrote. (Ebrard later claimed he had avoided signing a much worse "safe third country’" agreement.)

Today, Ebrard is Mexico’s economy secretary, and would lead Mexico’s delegation in the scheduled 2026 review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, something that Trump has greeted with mirth ("I've never seen anybody fold like that," Trump once said of Ebrard.)

Ebrard on Thursday downplayed any risks this time around, saying e conomic ties between the two countries would keep Trump from closing borders or imposing tariffs.

“I am optimistic. Unlike other countries, we are the largest trading partner (of the U.S.), so, if you put up a tariff, that will have repercussions in the United States,” Ebrard said. “I’m not saying it is going to be easy, because it is not at all easy, but the relationship with President Trump will be good because, what unites us? These numbers, this gigantic economy.”

But some former diplomats say any argument that Mexico can avoid friction with the Trump administration is overconfident, and that 2025 is not necessarily going to be like 2019.

Martha Bárcena, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2018 to 2021, said she doesn't think Trump would back away from campaign promises to deport migrants who are in the country illegally. She said Mexican officials who believe Trump might temper his “campaign promises because Mexican migrants are necessary for the U.S. economy” are being overly optimistic.

“Mexico is looking at it through the lens of economic logic. The logic that the Trump campaign applies on immigration is a logic of national security and cultural identity issues," Bárcena said.

Some of Trump's biggest policy concerns – restoring U.S. jobs and the increasing rivalry with China — also run through Mexico.

U.S. and foreign automakers have set up dozens of plants in Mexico, and some in the U.S. worry that Chinese companies could do the same to take advantage of existing trade rules to export Chinese cars or auto parts to the United States.

It doesn’t help that Sheinbaum has pushed through López Obrador’s policies aimed at eliminating independent regulatory and oversight bodies, and laws the U.S. government says could reduce the independence of the judiciary, both of which are required under the USMCA trade agreement.

“If they go ahead with the elimination of independent regulators and autonomous bodies, that’s going to be a further violation of the USMCA,” Sarukhan said. “And then that’s going to make things even worse. Obviously, the big piece is going to be China and the Chinese footprint in Mexico.”

That could lead Trump to demand the re-negotiation of all auto industry agreements under the trade pact.

As far as efforts to jointly combat the illegal drug trade — such cooperation fell to historic lows in 2019 and 2020 — there have been some modestly encouraging signs. Last week, Mexico announced the seizure in Tijuana of over 300,000 fentanyl pills after months when t he country’s entire seizures had amounted to as little as 50 grams — a couple of ounces — per week.

Sheinbaum, who took office on Oct. 1, also appears to be tacitly abandoning López Obrador’s strategy of not confronting drug cartels. But neither she nor her predecessor and political mentor could ever accept any Trump plan to send U.S. forces to operate independently on Mexican soil.

It remains to see how far Trump might go; he often makes only token gestures to carry through on threats. But Sarukhan noted, “I do think that he will talk loudly and carry a big stick.”

AP Writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. contributed to this report.

FILE - Migrants line up at the Paso del Norte international bridge to present to U.S. agents documents requesting an appointment to apply for asylum, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez, File)

FILE - Migrants line up at the Paso del Norte international bridge to present to U.S. agents documents requesting an appointment to apply for asylum, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez, File)

FILE - Newly-named Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard makes a “you go first” gesture to incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum, as they exit a press conference where Sheinbaum presented six members of her Cabinet, in Mexico City, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

FILE - Newly-named Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard makes a “you go first” gesture to incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum, as they exit a press conference where Sheinbaum presented six members of her Cabinet, in Mexico City, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

FILE - Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena, left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, June 3, 2019, as part of a Mexican delegation in Washington for talks following trade tariff threats from the Trump Administration. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena, left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, June 3, 2019, as part of a Mexican delegation in Washington for talks following trade tariff threats from the Trump Administration. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - Cars exit the General Motors assembly plant in Villa de Reyes, outside San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Jan. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Cars exit the General Motors assembly plant in Villa de Reyes, outside San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Jan. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - An SUV model built in Mexico for Chinese state-owned automaker JAC Motors is presented in the country's first JAC showroom, in Naucalpan, on the outskirts of Mexico City, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - An SUV model built in Mexico for Chinese state-owned automaker JAC Motors is presented in the country's first JAC showroom, in Naucalpan, on the outskirts of Mexico City, March 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Justice employees hold up cutouts of Supreme Court justices in a show of support as they discuss a draft ruling that proposes the partial invalidation of the judicial reform approved by Congress, in Mexico City, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

FILE - Justice employees hold up cutouts of Supreme Court justices in a show of support as they discuss a draft ruling that proposes the partial invalidation of the judicial reform approved by Congress, in Mexico City, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum smiles as she holds the staff of office during a rally in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum smiles as she holds the staff of office during a rally in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump signs a new North American trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, at the White House in Washington, Jan. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump signs a new North American trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, at the White House in Washington, Jan. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, left, and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, left, and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard attend a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

FILE - Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left, and President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left, and President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, July 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico

EUREKA, Calif. (AP) — The National Weather Service has canceled its tsunami warning for the U.S. West Coast after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck early Thursday.

At least 5.3 million people in California were under a tsunami warning after the earthquake struck, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

It was felt as far south as San Francisco, where residents felt a rolling motion for several seconds. It was followed by smaller aftershocks.

There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

EUREKA, Calif. (AP) — Officials were urging some residents to move inland after a strong earthquake near the coast of Northern California early Thursday sparked worries of a possible tsunami.

At least 5.3 million people in California were under a tsunami warning after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a yellow alert, which predicts localized but minimal damage. More than 1.3 million people lived close enough to the quake that they could have felt it, the USGS estimated.

The quake struck at 10:44 a.m. west of Ferndale, a small city in coastal Humboldt County near the Oregon border, according to the USGS.

It was felt as far south as San Francisco, where residents felt a rolling motion for several seconds. It was followed by smaller aftershocks.

A tsunami warning, which was issued shortly after the temblor struck, covers nearly 500 miles (805 km) of coastline, from the edge of California’s Monterey Bay north into Oregon.

The National Weather Service urged residents along the Northern California coastline, including in the San Francisco Bay Area, to move inland due to the threat of a possible tsunami. A wave could reach the San Francisco coastline as early as 12:10 p.m., according to Rachel Kennedy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office that covers the Bay Area.

Kennedy said forecasters are waiting to get a report on how high potential waves could be. She called it “a pretty dangerous situation.”

The city of Berkeley was ordering people in parts of the city to “leave now” in anticipation of an incoming tsunami.

“It was a strong quake, our building shook, we’re fine but I have a mess to clean up right now,” said a still shaken Julie Kreitzer, owner of Golden Gait Mercantile, a store packed with food, wares and souvenirs that is a main attraction in Ferndale.

“We lost a lot of stuff. It’s probably worse than two years ago. I have to go, I have to try and salvage something for the holidays because it’s going to be a tough year,” Kreitzer said before hanging up.

Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel said evacuations are in place for people to move to higher ground in areas of the city under the tsunami warning and crews were assessing damage from the quake. So far there have been no reports of major damage or injuries. Bergel, who works as a resource aid at a middle school said lights were swaying and everyone got under desks.

“The kids were so great and terrified. It seemed to go back and forth for quite a long time.” She said. Some children asked, “Can I call my mom.” (edited)

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, known as BART, has stopped traffic in all directions through the underwater tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland.

The San Francisco Zoo’s visitors have been evacuated as a result of the earthquake, the zoo said in a post on the social media platform X. The animals have been secured and staff has been moved to higher ground.

Throughout Northern California phones buzzed with a tsunami warning from the National Weather Service that said: “A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coast until local officials say it is safe to return.”

People watch the waves come in after an earthquake was felt widely across Northern California at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

People watch the waves come in after an earthquake was felt widely across Northern California at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

Recommended Articles