Trump & Mexican president offer conflicting narratives over their talks on immigration as tariff war looms

US President-elect Donald Trump and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum offered conflicting accounts over how their conversation about the US border crisis went down. While Trump declared the conversation a win on stopping illegal immigration through Mexico, Sheinbaum maintained that the country would not close its border to the United States.

The two leaders held a telephonic conversation on Wednesday afternoon and both of them later described their discussion as positive. However, both of them provided different descriptions of what Mexico would be doing to deal with the immigration crisis and tariff wars.

“Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial shortly after the talks. “We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!” he added.

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What the Mexican President has to say over the meeting

While Sheinbaum said that the meeting between the two leaders was “excellent,” she made it clear that Mexico won’t be closing the border. Before speaking to Trump, the Mexican president maintained that her country would impose retaliatory tariffs in response to similar measures threatened by the US president-elect.

“I had an excellent conversation with President Donald Trump. We discussed Mexico’s strategy on the migration phenomenon and I shared that caravans are not arriving at the northern border because they are being taken care of in Mexico,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Tuve una excelente conversación con el presidente Donald Trump. Abordamos la estrategia mexicana sobre el fenómeno de la migración y compartí que no están llegando caravanas a la frontera norte porque son atendidas en México.

También hablamos de reforzar la colaboración en… pic.twitter.com/PlGS5w3ZpC

— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) November 27, 2024

“We also discussed strengthening collaboration on security issues within the framework of our sovereignty and the campaign we are carrying out in the country to prevent the consumption of fentanyl,” she added. She later noted that “Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples.”

The update from the Mexican president came after Trump jolted the trade relations between the two nations after he said that he would impose a 25 per cent tariff on all goods from the country unless Mexican authorities stopped migrants and drugs, such as fentanyl, from coming across the border.

The announcement posed a major threat to the Mexican economy which heavily relies on trade with the United States. In response to this Sheinbaum said earlier on Wednesday, “If there are US tariffs, Mexico would also raise tariffs” — making clear her stance on Mexico’s potential response. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard pointed out that about 400,000 jobs could be lost in the United States if Trump imposed the tariffs, calling the move a “shot in the foot”.