By Annie Correal and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
In the weeks before he took office, Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to carry out the largest deportations in U.S. history and to militarize the border, all while his transition team rebuffed requests from regional leaders to meet over the effects of his promised moves.
He made countries such as Mexico targets of his attacks, claiming migrants were flooding the United States with fentanyl and threatening to enforce devastating tariffs. He also zeroed in on Panama, repeatedly asserting that the country had permitted China to take control, compelling the United States to intervene and reclaim the Panama Canal.
So as Trump was inaugurated in Washington on Monday, the typical congratulatory messages were also accompanied by some from Latin American leaders that deviated sharply from the usual diplomatic norms.
“There is no reason why Mexico should keep its head down or feel lesser than. We are a great country, a cultural power,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum during her daily morning news conference. “Our relationship with the United States will be one of equals.”
She also tried to reassure Mexicans living in the United States without legal permission who might face removal. “Mexicans are very important to the U.S. economy, and the Trump administration knows it,” Sheinbaum said. “To our countrymen and women: You are not alone, and you must remain calm.”
Mexico is the country with the highest number of immigrants without legal status in the United States, with around 4 million Mexicans living there without authorization as of 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.
Mexico’s foreign minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, also said Monday that Mexico would not support the anticipated move to reinstate a policy known as Remain in Mexico, which under the first Trump presidency forced migrants applying for asylum to wait in Mexico until the time of their hearings in immigration court. The policy was a boon for drug cartel members, who targeted asylum-seekers to extort, kidnap and rape them, human rights groups say.
“Yes, they can do it; it is their right,” de la Fuente said of the United States. But while allowing that “some agreements” could be reached, he pointed out that Mexico had no legal obligation to process migrants’ asylum requests for the United States.
Hours later, in a message on social media, Sheinbaum congratulated Trump. “As neighbors and trading partners, dialogue, respect and cooperation will always be the symbol of our relationship,” she wrote.
But during a marathon session of signing executive orders, Trump said Monday that he would slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1, accusing both countries, as he has in the past, of allowing immigrants and fentanyl into the United States. Sheinbaum and some of her administration officials have previously said Mexico would have to hit back on the United States with their own tariffs.
Following Trump’s inauguration, the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, who warned this month that she was prepared to expel the U.S. military from the country if Trump pursued mass deportations, limited herself to sending a polite message welcoming him back into office.
But the country’s deputy foreign minister, Tony García, said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon that his country and several of its neighbors did not plan to accept large numbers of flights carrying deportees without first negotiating the process with the incoming administration.
“They can’t be done unilaterally,” he said, of mass deportations.
García said that while there are currently no plans to end Honduras’ military agreement with the United States, which permits U.S. operations from a large military base, the Castro administration is still considering it as a potential option, so “they take us more seriously.”
The foreign ministers of several countries met last week to discuss their response to the incoming Trump administration in Mexico City, including Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela. According to García, the countries agreed that they would not “allow anyone to be deported by force. If a country says no one can come in, not one plane can touch down.”
Honduras is estimated to have about 525,000 immigrants living without legal permission in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. García said it had received flights carrying more than half a million deportees from the United States in the last decade. He said the country planned to continue receiving such flights, but the two governments had to work out a plan first.
“We are in favor of coordination,” he said. “Not subordination.”
His were some of the sharpest words for the new president.
In Panama, a target of Trump’s recent criticisms, including his false claims that China controls the Panama Canal and that the United States should take it back, President José Raúl Mulino roundly rejected the president’s assertions, which he repeated during his inaugural speech.
“The Canal is and will continue to belong to Panama and its administration will continue to be under Panamanian control,” Mulino said in a statement posted on the social platform X.
However, later in the day, the Panamanian comptroller’s office announced that auditors had visited the county’s maritime authorities to initiate an audit of Panama Ports Co., a Hutchison Ports Holding subsidiary. The company is a major ports operator and the country’s main port concessionaire. It is also part of CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.
“The purpose of this exhaustive audit is to ensure the efficient and transparent use of public resources,” the comptroller’s office said.
In a shift, countries that have been close trading partners of the United States also saw their economies menaced. By late Monday, Mexican leaders had not yet responded to Trump’s tariffs threat. But Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, did.
“Our country is absolutely ready to respond to any one of these scenarios,” LeBlanc said. “We still continue to believe that it would be a mistake.”
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