Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, stood under a gigantic Mexican flag and for troops on a military installation in Mexico city. It was Flag Day last month and she used her speech as an opportunity to collect, figuratively and literally.
“Mexico must be respected,” she said, and later added, “The people are brave. We know that when our people unite in their history, their country and their flag, there is no power in the world that can break their mind.”
The times had changed, she said: Mexico would not bow to foreign governments.
Given the circumstances – President Trump's steep rates against Mexico came into effect in the first minutes of Tuesday – the view of Mrs. Sheinbaum was appropriate. As Mr Trump was once again focused on Mexico, with the help of the hammer of rates as a negotiating instrument, a sense of Mexican nationalism has been strengthened.
The Mexican government and companies have again fueled a 'Made in Mexico' campaign. Some Mexicans have called for boycots of American companies and products, while others have put together lists of Mexican stores and brands to support American stores.
Mrs. Sheinbaum is often on the front page of local newspapers with members of the army of the country or for a gigantic Mexican flag. Private companies have disabled nationalist advertisements, one with the president who leads the masses and wears a banner with the text: “Mexico United, never beaten!”
And Mrs. Sheinbaum, who has tried to balance a pro-Mexico drumbeat while arguing with cooperative dialogue with American officers, has seen her approval classifications according to a survey of up to 80 percent. She is not only followed a popular president, Andres Manuel López Obrador, who reformed Mexican politics and her mentor, but came into her own in a time of global unrest among Mr Trump.
“There is now a lot of support for the president,” said Juan Manuel Sánchez, 57, a craftsman in Mexico City who also praised the performance of Mrs. Sheinbaum to drug trafficking.
During his first term, Mr. Trump used rates to negotiate again about the North American free trade agreement and to hit a new American Mexico-Canada agreement, which he signed in 2020. He has now used comparable tactics against Mexico and Canada, while claiming that too many illegal drugs and migrants from the two countries are flowing in the United States.
A month ago, Mr Trump signed an executive order in which it was called up to 25 percent rates for Mexican input. But less than a day before they came into force, Mr Trump and Mrs. Sheinbaum spoke on the phone and announced an agreement to postpone them for 30 days.
According to the conditions of that deal, Mexico placed another 10,000 Mexican National Guards troops on the border to help steal the flow of Fentanyl and migrants to the United States. In exchange, Mrs. Sheinbaum said, the US government would work to stop the flow from weapons to Mexico.
Although the number of migrant transitions on the southern border has fallen into unthinkable levels since Mr Trump took place in January, the Mexican officials were considerably deterred to the United States for months earlier. Last week Mexico sent nearly 30 top cartel workers by the American authorities to the United States, one of the largest such transfers in the history of the drug war.
“There is a lot of unity in the country about what is happening,” including Mr Trump's economic threats, Mrs. Sheinbaum said Monday, hours before the rates came into force.
Although Mr. Trump stated on Monday that the rates would start the next day, the cloud over Mexico has been looming from the north since his most recent presidential campaign. It led to uncertainty and frustration, but also brought the national pride.
Agustin Barrios Gómez, a former Mexican Congressman and one of the founders of the Non -Profit Mexican Council on foreign relations, said that even Mexicans who did not vote for Mrs. Sheinbaum “that now understand the national interest of Mexico – beyond the party politics – to collect our president.”
A reason for the increase in support of her, said Mr Barrios Gómez, was to ensure that Mrs. Sheinbaum has sufficient political capital in the country to be in a stronger negotiating position with Mr. Trump, no matter what there is.
Nationalism is complicated in Mexico, Mr Barrios Gómez said, because it is so complicated with the United States geographically, culturally and economically, as well as with immigration and security.
“We are not neighbors, we are roommates,” he said. In other words, analysts said, the American rates against Mexico will harm both economies, just like the mutual rates proposed by Mrs. Sheinbaum. (Mr Trump also threatens individual 25 percent rates for global steel and aluminum imports, which would influence Mexico.)
For Mexico the turning point against the United States was not reached, Mr. Barrios Gómez said at the end of last week before the rates came into force, but “if you call someone your enemy enough, you might just change them.”
The ghost of a trade war between the countries has changed the perception in Mexico of Mr Trump and of his relationship with the United States.
According to the Mexican survey film Beendía & Marquéz, the number of respondents in Mexico was that the relationship between Mrs. Sheibaum and Mr. Trump at least decreased considerably between last November and February, while the number of respondents with a negative opinion about the Lord Trump in the middle of the 66 percent.
Mr. Trump has nevertheless praised Mrs. Sheinbaum as a 'beautiful woman' while he mocked Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau, who has become increasingly unpopular at home, goes into the office his last days, while the popular foundation of Mrs. Sheinbaum is stronger. She complained the elections last summer and started her six -year term in October.
During her Monday morning news conference, Mrs. Sheinbaum again called for calm for the deadline of Mr. Trump and said she hoped to close a last-minute deal that did not come out. “Of course we don't want there to be rates,” she said, adding that her government would respond.
Since before Mr Trump's inauguration, her administration has been promoting what the 'Plan Mexico' calls, a strategy that was intended to diversify its economy to make it less dependent on the United States, to breathe new life into Mexican production and to push the country to become one of 's world's top 10 economies. (It is currently the 15th largest, according to the International Monetary Fund.)
As part of that effort, Mrs. Sheinbaum's administration began with the “Made in Mexico” Drive, in which an official seal is placed on products made in the country that meet certain requirements. The seal, with an illustration of a Mexican eagle, was founded in 1978 to promote Mexican goods and has been revived by presidents over the years.
While the endangered American rates were paused a month ago, Mexico's Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, told companies that the government again wanted to push the seal “Made in Mexico”.
Last week Walmart Mexico, the largest private employer in the country with 200,000 employees, revealed his efforts to place the “Made in Mexico” stamp – with the added word “pride” – in the aisles of his 3,000 stores throughout the country. Although Walmart is an American brand, Javier Treviño, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs of Walmart Mexico, said that the company wanted to show customers that it is a Mexican entity and that most products it sells are made within the nation.
The campaign “is very important to us because we have to strengthen investments and trust in Mexico and ensure that the economy can grow because the environment is not easy,” said Mr. Treviño, a former Mexican Congressman, in an interview.
Other large companies have joined the push of Mrs. Sheinbaum, including Grupo Modelo, the brew giant that Corona and Modelo Beers makes, announced that the new “Made in Mexico” caps would put bottles.
On Saturday, Mr. Sánchez, the Artisan of Mexico City, was on his neighborhood market, who, he said, proved that he would rather shop locally. Before Mr Trump's rates came into force, he said he could consider boycotting American companies and products if they did.
Unlike in Canada, where the local population has pushed American products and bought more Canadian flags since Mr Trump threatened the rates, Mr. Sánchez said that Mexicans were already nationalistic and that most had a flag.
“But if something happens very seriously here,” he said, “we all unite.”
Maria Abi-Habib Reported report from Mexico City contributed.
