Mexico suggests it would impose its own tariffs to retaliate against any Trump tariffs

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own, aft U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to enforce 25% tariffs connected Mexican goods if the state doesn’t halt the travel of drugs and migrants crossed the border.

Sheinbaum said she was consenting to prosecute successful talks connected the issues, but said drugs were a U.S. problem.

“One tariff would beryllium followed by different successful response, and truthful connected until we enactment astatine hazard communal businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that person plants connected some sides of the border.

She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a batch to stem the travel of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants nary longer scope the border.” She besides said Mexico had worked to stem the travel of drugs, similar the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, adjacent though “it is simply a occupation of nationalist wellness and depletion successful your country’s society.”

Sheinbaum besides criticized U.S. spending connected weapons, saying the wealth should alternatively beryllium spent regionally to code the occupation of migration. “If a percent of what the United States spends connected warfare were dedicated to bid and development, that would code the underlying causes of migration,” she said.

Sheinbaum’s bristly effect suggests that Trump faces a overmuch antithetic Mexican president than helium did successful his archetypal term.

Back successful precocious 2018, erstwhile President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a charismatic, old-school person who developed a chummy narration with Trump. The 2 were yet capable to onslaught a woody successful which Mexico helped support migrants distant from the borderline — and received different countries’ deported migrants — and Trump backed down connected the threats.

But Sheinbaum, who took bureau Oct. 1, is simply a stern leftist ideologue trained successful extremist pupil protestation movements, and appears little consenting to pacify oregon mollify Trump.

However, it's not wide however superior Trump’s menace is. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada escaped commercialized statement forbids conscionable imposing tariffs connected different subordinate countries. And it’s not wide whether the system could adjacent tolerate abrupt levies connected imports: Auto plants connected some sides of the borderline trust connected each different for parts and components; immoderate accumulation lines could screech to a halt.

“It is unacceptable and would origin ostentation and occupation losses successful Mexico and the United States,” Sheinbaum said.