With a trade in trade war, President Trump gave Mexican President a sign of respect for a long way: “You are hard,” he told him during a telephone call last month, according to four people knowing the exchange.
By their most recent conversation, the two leaders exchanged compliments and occurred a reprieve of certain prices in real time, said familiar people with the call.
When Claudia Sheinbaum became president on October 1, the first woman to govern Mexico, there were doubts about how she would manage relations with the United States, especially if Mr. Trump won the elections.
Proud from left and scientist in training, Ms. Sheinbaum had little experience in foreign policy in her previous post as mayor of Mexico City. Unlike his predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was heard with Mr. Trump and shared her explosive style, Ms. Sheinbaum was more considered a reserved technocrat than a woman of political spectacle.
But she surprised a lot in her country not only by pushing a threatening dam by Mr. Trump, but also by forging, somewhat improbable, a relationship of budding audience with her American counterpart.
“No one expected it to be so good or this chance,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, Mexican political analyst. “Anyway, it works.”
On the campaign track, Trump made Mexico a clear target of his attacks. Once elected, he swore to impose prices on the southern neighbor of America until fentanyl stops flowing in the United States.
Recently, he praised Mrs. Sheinbaum, even though he excited more experienced world leaders. He called him “a wonderful woman” with whom he has a “very good” relationship.
Her calm behavior and the results she has delivered on migration and fentanyl seem to have won her respect, say those responsible for the two countries, impressive key members of his administration, including the deputy chief Stephen Miller, who has the surveillance of internal policy and is internal security advisor.
His relations with the American president are partly helped by the contrast to Mr. Trump’s much more controversial relations with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who left the post on Friday.
At the start of their last conversation last week, Ms. Sheinbaum spent about five minutes traveling everything she had done to secure the border and fight fentanyl trafficking, according to two people familiar with talks. Before the call, she had sent Mr. Trump Data to save her points. She suggested that the prices would only make it more difficult for her to explain this level of cooperation to her citizens.
Trump remained silent for a long beat after ceasing to speak – then, after having complimented Ms. Sheinbaum, launched suddenly in an attack on Canada, people said. He asked what Mrs. Sheinbaum thought of Mr. Trudeau. She said she hadn’t talked much to the Canadian chief. Trump said she was lucky.
At the end of the appeal, said the people, Trump proposed to exclude many Mexican goods from the prices, then began to dictate, aloud, a social article of truth announcing the agreement. Ms. Sheinbaum and her team were delighted.
Mr. Trump posted that he delays the prices until April 2 “without respect” for the Mexican president, adding: “Thank you to President Sheinbaum for your hard work and your cooperation!” Ms. Sheinbaum said the call was “excellent and respectful” in a Publish.
She also made daring movements against the drug cartels known to take revenge on those who threaten them. Perhaps the most radical: the transfer of 29 drug lords to the United States to face criminal charges at the end of February. This decision was a colossal blow for organized criminal groups and sent a message that Ms. Sheinbaum was serious to fight them.
Shortly after the transfer, Ms. Sheinbaum’s mobile phone was hacked, according to several people familiar with the issue. A spokesperson for the Mexican presidency refused to comment.
While intensely cooperating with Mr. Trump, Ms. Sheinbaum also beat the nationalist feeling at home, reminding Mexicans that the country is “not a colony of anyone” and repeating a version of the expression “Coordination, yes; Submission, never. “”
In recent months, its approval ratings in Mexico have exceeded 75%.
However, despite the efforts of Ms. Sheinbaum, Mexico was not protected from the unpredictability of Mr. Trump. Like the rest of the world, the country awaits another cycle of potential prices on April 2. It is also featured with steel and aluminum prices imposed this week, as well as tasks on goods not included in the Mexico-Canada US Agreement, which was about half of the country’s US exports last year, according to an unauthorized white chamber manager. Commercial disturbances have already shake the Mexican economy.
But while Mr. Trump continues to hammer Canada with new threats of steep samples and annexation, the Mexicans mainly benefit from a drama break – at least for the moment.
“It’s like an episode of the real life of” The Apprentice “,” said Bravo Regidor, referring to the reality series of the 2000s with Mr. Trump. “The purpose of the whole series is to survive until the next episode, and it has been able to do so far.”
The two leaders have gone a long way in a few months.
Trump accused Mexico led by cartels and threatened military strikes on Mexican soil. And although Mr. Trump has often publicly declared that he had a formidable relationship with Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, Mr. López Obrador, he also supported the concerns about the management of the former Mexican chief of the cartel’s violence.
Mr. Trump and some key members of his team were initially skeptical of Ms. Sheinbaum, two people familiar with his thought declared, in part because of the media coverage which described it as an ideologically committed left.
At the beginning, his rhetoric towards Mr. Trump was sometimes an opponent.
During a press conference in November, she Read a strongly formulated letter aloud She had written Mr. Trump responding to his threat of prices. “For each price, there will be an answer in kind, until we endanger our common companies,” she said.
The missive was considered by some members of Mr. Trump’s transition team as a reprimand and unnecessary provocation, according to five families with their reflection.
Then, at the beginning of January, after Mr. Trump said that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of America, Ms. Sheinbaum joked by saying that the United States was renamed “Mexican America”. The comments were widely interpreted as Moving from Mr. Trump.
But his style began to move when some of his advisers began to hear that confrontation tactics would only make Mr. Trump’s anger.
She gained points by deciding to speak to Mr. Trump in English during their calls, three people familiar with discussions said. Mr. López Obrador spoke to Mr. Trump in Spanish, through an interpreter, and spoke for so long that he has often bored the president, officials said.
On the other hand, Ms. Sheinbaum came to her conversations with the extremely prepared president, said three American and Mexican officials. She studied her speeches, watching the videos, to try to understand Mr. Trump’s communication style.
Her tone with him was calm, and she met such serious and transparent officials. This uniform approach made a particular impression because it is so different from that of Mr. Trudeau, who had more controversial exchanges with Mr. Trump.
Mexico observers highlighted the climbing of birth between the United States and Canada as a sign that perhaps the lighter touch by Ms. Sheinbaum with Mr. Trump protected the country from new disturbances.
“She was worthy and discreet not to fight,” said Enrique Krauze, an eminent Mexican historian. “Its natural characteristics have worked well, for the moment, faced with a personality like Trump.”
Maria Abi-Habib Contributed reports.
