MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO — Sunday, February 2, 2025

Good afternoon to everyone.

As you may already be aware, yesterday the United States government imposed a 25% tariff on the products we export to their country. Listen to this: For 30 years this hadn’t existed because we have a free trade agreement. The last free trade agreement was signed by President López Obrador with President Trump himself.

This 25% tariff measure affects both countries, but it has very serious consequences for the US economy, as it will significantly raise prices on all goods exported from Mexico to the United States. It will add 25% more in costs. According to these measures approved by the US government, there are substantiating documents, and one of the reasons for the tariff is the fentanyl that enters from Mexico to the United States, which causes illness and overdose deaths.

But even more irresponsible—terribly irresponsible—is that the White House issued a document stating that there are links between Mexico’s government and organized crime. I want to tell you about the statement I published on social media yesterday. There, I explain who actually have links with these criminal groups, and the reason behind the overdose deaths of Americans. I also state that if they want to act, they shouldn’t focus on Mexico, but on their own country, where they have done nothing to stop the illegal sale of this and other drugs.

First of all, as I said yesterday, we categorically reject the slander the White House has made about the Mexican government having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any interventionist intention towards our territory. Sovereignty cannot be negotiated. If such an alliance exists anywhere, it is in the gun retailers in the United States, which sell high-powered weapons—yes, high-powered weapons that are for exclusive use by their military—to these criminal groups.

This was demonstrated—listen to this—this was demonstrated by the US Department of Justice on January 8 of this year. Here I have the document that was published on that date, where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which is under the Department of Justice, acknowledged that 74% of the weapons used by organized crime in Mexico come illegally from the military industry in their country.

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Our government has seized more than 40 tons of drugs in four months, including 20 million doses of fentanyl. It has also arrested more than 10,000 people linked to these groups. We have a strategy, we address the root causes, and we fight impunity. We work for the nation’s safety every day.

Now, if the government of the United States and its agencies want to address the severe fentanyl consumption in their country, why don’t they start by combating the sale of drugs on the streets of their major cities? Or how is it that people with addictions buy these drugs? Why have we never heard of arrests in the United States of US-based criminal groups? How is it that there is no investigation into money laundering by criminal groups over there? Why don’t they put all their intelligence to work to detect the criminal groups selling fentanyl or other drugs in their territory?

Well, they could also start a massive campaign to prevent drug use and protect their youth, as we do in Mexico. Drug consumption and distribution are happening in their country, and that is also a public-health issue they have never addressed. Why don’t they ask themselves what the root cause of all this drug use is, which has been ongoing in the United States for so long?

What’s more, as I also mentioned yesterday — listen to this: The synthetic opioid epidemic in the United States began with the indiscriminate prescription of these drugs authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, the so-called FDA, as proven in a trial against a pharmaceutical company. There are TV series about this. In fact, the very drug that caused the synthetic opioid crisis is still being sold in their pharmacies with official authorization.

I want to tell you, and this is very important, very important: Mexico does not want confrontation. We are committed to collaboration among neighboring countries. Mexico not only does not want fentanyl to reach the United States, but we also don’t want it to reach anywhere. So if the United States wants to fight criminal groups and wants us to do it together, we must work in an integrated manner. But always under principles—the principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust, collaboration, and above all, respect for sovereignty. Sovereignty is non-negotiable. Coordination, yes; subordination, no.

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For that reason, yesterday in my statement, I proposed to President Trump that we establish a working group with our best teams—security teams and also public-health teams. It is not by imposing tariffs that we can solve problems, but by talking and dialoguing, as we did—let me tell you about this—as we did in the past weeks with the Department of State to address the migration phenomenon—in our case, always with respect for human rights. The graphic that President Trump has posted on social media about the drop in migration was prepared by none other than our team, which has been in constant communication with theirs.

To our brothers and sisters, Mexican nationals in the United States, I want to say that here is your president, and an entire nation, to defend you. If you want to return to Mexico, we embrace you here. The people of Mexico are brave, and we have much dignity; they are the most amazing people on Earth. I tell you, here is your president, we have courage and firmness, but as I’ve said on other occasions, we must always act with a cool head and love for the people. Nothing we do will undermine the dignity or interests of the people of Mexico.

I propose that we wait for President Trump’s response to our proposal, and tomorrow in the morning briefing, in the people’s mañanera, I will provide an update on the measures of what we call the «Plan B.» As Juárez said, «Nothing by force, everything by reason and law,» and “among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.”

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VqALXoOGog)