Sheinbaum is just another Trump appeaser

Yesterday marked the end of the second year of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s six-year term. Her economic record is mediocre, as my colleague and former Mexican secretary of finance Guillermo Ortiz has demonstrated, and her performance on security, law enforcement, and fighting organized crime and corruption is questionable, too. Perhaps most worryingly, Sheinbaum is leading the country down an authoritarian path.

However, that has not stopped Sheinbaum from being widely praised at home and abroad for her handling of US President Donald Trump. Seen as firm and flexible, as avoiding confrontation without kowtowing, Sheinbaum is often compared to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney or Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who have defied Trump (albeit to limited effect).

Sheinbaum has skillfully — and cynically —disguised the extent to which she has deferred to Trump on almost every issue. She has been helped in this by the international press, which tends to give her the benefit of the doubt, and by the increasingly government-controlled Mexican media, which is always searching for reasons to praise her.

Consider Sheinbaum’s approach to immigration enforcement. Early last year, following Trump’s tariff threats, she dispatched 10,000 troops to the border with the US. To stop migrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean from transiting through Mexico, Sheinbaum also beefed up security on the southern border, added checkpoints on highways from the southern state of Chiapas to the rest of the country, and intensified patrols on rural migrant routes. The result was that migrant encounters at the US-Mexico border, which had already begun to fall during Joe Biden’s presidency, dropped precipitously.

However, she did not stop there. Last year, Mexico accepted about 12,000 deported non-Mexicans, mostly Cubans and Venezuelans, from the US, despite not being legally bound to take any of them — a practice that began during the first Trump administration, but intensified in recent years. Worse, although clearly indicating that Mexico accepts the return of all its nationals, Sheinbaum has been unable to stop the deportation of Mexican migrants to third countries, mainly Guatemala and Honduras. This particularly cruel move seeks to discourage Mexicans from migrating north, by flying them to dangerous places far from home.

On drug enforcement, Sheinbaum quickly acquiesced to Trump’s demands when he began to revoke US visas for Mexican officials, make strident claims about collusion between cartels and the Mexican political class, and designate those cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. When Sheinbaum transferred 92 cartel figures to the US, waiving extradition procedures and due process, the Americans were entranced. US authorities have expanded drone surveillance and undercover operations in the country, and engaged in more intelligence gathering and sharing with Mexican security forces, leading to the killing of drug cartel boss “El Mencho” and the capture or death of other high-value targets.

Sheinbaum is praised for rebuffing Trump’s “offers” of US “boots on the ground” in Mexico. It remains unclear if those “offers” have become demands or threats, and if “boots on the ground” refers only to uniformed US military openly participating in joint operations on Mexican territory. However, rejecting an overt US military presence in Mexico is something every Mexican president has done for a century. As for the number of clandestine, non-military US officials operating in the country today, that is, by definition, unknown to the public. Sheinbaum can publicly refuse “boots on the ground” while quietly accepting a more covert arrangement.

On trade, the other major item on the bilateral agenda, Sheinbaum has largely catered to Trump’s desires. Even before the scheduled review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) began, Mexico unilaterally slapped a 50 percent tariff on key goods imported from China (with which it runs a trade deficit of about US$123 billion), as Trump complained that many Chinese products exported to Mexico end up in the US.

Sheinbaum has also failed to retaliate against US tariffs or restrictions on a wide range of Mexican exports, from steel and vehicles to cattle and avocados. When Trump refused to renew the USMCA for another 16 years, preferring annual reviews and only between the US and Mexico, the Mexican government went along grudgingly. Sheinbaum has accepted most of the US negotiators’ demands, although the true extent of her concessions will be revealed only when a new agreement is announced.

Even on more symbolic matters, such as support for Cuba, long an ideological lodestar for the Mexican left, Sheinbaum caved. When Trump announced a fuel blockade on the island in January, Mexico immediately suspended oil and petroleum shipments. They have not been renewed.

To be fair, Sheinbaum has had little choice but to placate Trump. Mexico is bound to the US economy, making it all but impossible to push back against tariffs or take any other action that might prompt US reprisals. This is not new, nor is it likely to change.

Moreover, with the economy she inherited, Sheinbaum can hardly afford to stand up to one of the world’s most powerful leaders, a man who is widely derided, but seldom confronted. Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, secured her landslide victory, but left the country in shambles. He allowed the drug cartels to thrive and built “white elephant” infrastructure projects that required massive subsidies and discouraged private investment. The result was a stagnant economy, huge budget deficits and extreme vulnerability to US pressure. Income distribution has improved and poverty has dropped, but the Mexican economy refuses to grow.

The Mexican president’s dealings with Trump have largely been portrayed in a positive light. While she cannot necessarily be blamed for appeasing him, her policies should be seen for what they are.

Jorge G. Castaneda, a former secretary of foreign affairs of Mexico, is a visiting professor at Sciences Po.