Mexican president accuses U.S. of harbouring drug cartels
“The issue isn’t just that drugs go from Mexico to the United States,” she added.Sheinbaum said that Mexico is willing to work with the U.S. government on security issues in Mexico, but she stressed that the U.S. government also has to “do its work” to “avoid the trafficking of drugs in their country.”“In the United States, they also have to act,” she said.
During her press conference, Sheinbaum also urged Google to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America for U.S. users. Sheinbaum said that Mexico could file a civil lawsuit against Google.
“If necessary, we will file a civil suit,” she said. “Even President Trump isn’t proposing that the entire Gulf of Mexico be called the ‘Gulf of America,’ but only their continental shelf. So Google is wrong.”
She urged Google to review the decree from the White House, arguing “the only place it was effective was where (the U.S.) has sovereignty, or up to 22 nautical miles from the coast.”
Mexico’s president says her government requested US surveillance drone flights
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says surveillance drone flights by the U.S. government over Mexico are occurring in collaboration with and at the request of her government
MEXICO CITY — Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that surveillance drone flights by the U.S. government over Mexico are occurring in collaboration with and at the request of her government.
They come as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has increased pressure on Mexico to do more to stop the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl that is smuggled north to the United States.
Earlier this month, Trump threatened, then postponed 25% tariffs on Mexican imports that he said were meant to push Mexico to take more action against its drug cartels. Trump also ordered on his first day in office the designation of some of Mexico’s drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Those designations are expected soon.
Mexico responded to the tariff threat by sending 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border.
The drone flights were reported Tuesday by the New York Times as a Central Intelligence Agency program aimed at locating fentanyl labs in northwestern Mexico. The flights follow U.S. military statements that it had increased surveillance capabilities along the countries’ shared border. The CIA declined to comment in response to questions about the drone flights.
Mexico’s Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla addressed the flights by U.S. military planes last week, saying that they had not entered Mexican airspace, but that he couldn’t rule out they were spying because he didn’t know what they doing.
Sheinbaum on Wednesday presented a more detailed explanation.
“These flights are part of the coordination … collaborations that have been going on for many years, between the United States government and the Mexican government,” Sheinbaum said at her daily press briefing. “Every time it is at Mexico’s request for collaboration, for information to be able to attend to security conditions.”
She said the information gathered was shared with Mexican authorities.
The bank forecast average annual core inflation, which some analysts consider more reliable as it excludes volatile energy and food prices, of 3.3% for the fourth quarter this year. That is up from a previous estimate of 3%.
President Donald Trump vows to remove millions of unauthorized migrants from the US and stop new entrants at the border. Bringing back the punitive playbook from his first administration not only won’t fix today’s border challenges. It will further destabilize Mexico and exacerbate threats to both countries.
Congressional Republicans have taken the anti-immigrant cue, holding an early hearing bent on reviving restrictive border policies. The Migrant Protection Protocols, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico,” forced asylum seekers to await their case hearing in Mexico. Title 42 was even more ambitious in its exclusion, using the COVID-19 pandemic health emergency to expel migrants apprehended at the border. And yes, building the wall is back in vogue, albeit without talk of getting Mexico to pay for it.
These policies missed the mark in terms of slowing or stopping unauthorized migration and hurt Mexico and the US. Under Remain in Mexico, tens of thousands of asylum seekers duly waited next door as their applications were processed, living in makeshift camps and shelters for weeks, months, even years along the border. The influx overwhelmed border towns and communities and attracted transnational criminal organizations, whose thugs assaulted, kidnapped and extorted migrants, forcing some to smuggle drugs into the US. And while Title 42 blocked more than 2.5 million border crossings between 2020 and 2023, it didn’t stop migrants from coming. Indeed, during its first year in operation, border apprehensions between ports of entry nearly tripled, because the rapid, no-trace expulsion process encouraged migrants to keep trying to cross. There is no reason these policies will work better the second time around.
Adding now to the injury will be mass deportations. Roughly four out of every ten unauthorized migrants in the US are from Mexico, potential targets for an aggressive round-up. Moreover, in perhaps a global first, Mexico has agreed to take in up to 30,000 deportees a month from other nations, a compromise the new administration could lean into and expand.
The influx of migrants passing through and being sent back across the border has been a boon to Mexico’s cartels, which have banked billions from their smuggling and extortion rackets. With estimated earnings from preying on migrants ranging from $4 billion to $12 billion a year, revenues now may rival those from illegal drugs.
Mass deportations will expand these opportunities. More desperate dislocated people mean more profits, which the gangs will use to expand their control of Mexico’s territory and its politics. Greater resources also give them more capacity to arm themselves and bribe officials on both sides of the border, boosting their deadly trades in fentanyl and other drugs.
Rising insecurity in Mexico hits legal commerce as well. A growing number of US-based factories and producers depend on Mexico through an ecosystem of cross-border suppliers developed over the last three decades. Trade between the US and Mexico has grown by more than 50% since 2020 and now tops $900 billion a year. Nearshoring is a big part of the story. Mexico-based industrial parks have proliferated as manufacturers look to delink, at least in part, from China. The boomlet in Mexico-based assembly and manufacturing also drives demand for US-made capital goods, machinery, and all kinds of parts and inputs.
A destabilized border threatens these gains. The US got a taste of the cost in 2023, when migrant worries led the US border patrol to stop trains coming into Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas. Auto makers, farmers, and ranchers in particular saw parts and agricultural products pile up on both sides of the border. Mass deportations could expand and extend the chaos, threatening many of the more than one million US-based jobs that depend on exports to Mexico, and the many more tied into North American supply chains. The effects would reach far beyond the border, as Mexico is a top export destination for over half of the US states.
Border turmoil will make it harder for President Claudia Sheinbaum to sustain, let alone expand, Mexico’s cooperation with the US to reduce migrant flows. In addition to agreeing to implement Remain in Mexico during Trump’s first term, the nation has beefed up controls at its southern border and broken up caravans of migrants moving north. It has stopped trains the sojourners ride and intercepted and bused migrants from northern to southern Mexico, away from the US border. It has worked with the US to target migrant smuggling networks.
But policies such as the decision to accept tens of thousands of non-Mexican deportees aren’t popular in Mexico. According to polls from Latinobarometro, Oxfam Mexico, and Parametria/El Pais, roughly half of Mexicans think migrants take jobs and increase crime and are harmful to the nation more generally. A third want Mexico to limit migration, a fifth want the government to block migrants entirely.
Mexico looks near its breaking point in absorbing migrant flows. Its National Institute of Migration is underfunded and overwhelmed. Its asylum system is paralyzed by a backlog of 300,000 applications, even as 100,000 new claims are filed each year. An exodus of US deportees would likely harden these underlying public animosities, making it harder for Sheinbaum to go along with US policies.
To protect its commercial ties and its communities, the US needs orderly migration at the border. Late in Biden’s term, this started to happen. Tighter asylum rules and broader use of the CBP One app to schedule appointments substantially reduced the number of people showing up at border crossings each day and those crossing between legal ports of entry. So did the opening of new legal humanitarian pathways. Over the last year, encounters at the border have fallen some 80%.
Reintroducing stringent border laws, shutting down the CBP One app that regulates appointments, ending newer legal avenues into the US, and many other restrictive changes won’t make the border more orderly or likely even reduce unauthorized migration. Deporting those already here to Mexico certainly won’t either. Instead, it will aggravate security challenges and weaken economic ties that benefit both countries.
Last February, Trump torpedoed a bipartisan bill that would have strengthened border enforcement, targeted the cartels, raised the legal bar for asylum and hired more immigration judges and asylum officers. That US law would have helped. One other reality is inescapable, however: The real solution to fixing the border must be not only bipartisan, but bilateral.
In Mexico, INL also donates drug-detecting canines that helped Mexican authorities seize millions of fentanyl pills in 2023 alone, according to a March 2024 INL report, opens new tab.
The State Department and Mexico’s presidency and foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the freeze.
Who will call it the Gulf of America? A look at this and other naming disputes
President Donald Trump, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and his wife Kathryn, speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One after declaring Feb. 9 “Gulf of America Day.”
President Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico has drawn a mixed reception, from laughter to annoyance. Even as the federal government implements the switch, questions persist about how it will work and who must comply.
The order, which Trump signed on his first day in office, directs the secretary of the Interior to rename the body of water as the Gulf of America within 30 days.
“The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America,” it reads.
The gulf borders some 1,700 miles of U.S. coastline spanning Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Cuba and Mexico. Its oil and gas reserves, fisheries, ports and tourism opportunities make it a valuable resource in many ways.
“Having the name associated with the country is good PR, but it’s also a matter of patriotic pride,” says David Rain, a professor of geography and international affairs at George Washington University.
The name on a map can strengthen a country’s claims to ownership of a certain place and its symbolic power.
“People get passionate about it because, in a way, it’s a projection of their culture to call things certain things, and they want to preserve that,” he adds.
In this case, however, few Americans were pushing for the gulf to be renamed before Trump put his plans into motion. (Stephen Colbert joked about the idea in 2010. A Democratic lawmaker introduced a bill to that effect in 2012, but called it satirical.)
The executive order will dictate how the federal government refers to the body of water. But whether private institutions — such as mapping platforms, media outlets and educational companies — and individuals follow suit remains to be seen.
Some, like Google, are now calling it the Gulf of America, at least in the U.S. Others, like the Associated Press, plan to keep the original name.
Weeks after signing the order, as he flew over the gulf to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Trump declared Feb. 9 “the first ever Gulf of America Day.”
“As my Administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great Nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America,” reads the proclamation.
Rain is skeptical that a change made so unilaterally will stick. He says a future president may well reverse the order, the way that Trump is now reversing former President Barack Obama’s renaming of the Alaskan mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali.
“I think whether you use it or not will depend on how you feel about Trump,” Rain says. “But in terms of it turning into a lasting change, I would really doubt it.”
How does renaming work?
According to the order, the renaming process involves updating the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official federal database of all U.S. geographic names, to reflect the change and “remove all references to the Gulf of Mexico.”
The order also instructs the U.S. Board on Geographic Names — a federal agency within the Department of Interior that standardizes geographic names for government use — to ensure the change is reflected in agency maps, contracts, documents and communications.
Within days, the Department of Interior announced it would change the names of both the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan mountain Denali, per Trump’s order, “with efforts already underway.”
“The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, under the purview of the Department of the Interior, is working expeditiously to update the official federal nomenclature in the Geographic Names Information System to reflect these changes, effective immediately for federal use,” it said last Friday.
Rain explains that it’s not unusual for the Board of Geographic Names to rename places and sites in the U.S., especially those with names now considered offensive. But that process usually entails an element of public support — such as a petition — and representatives from federal agencies.
“They have representatives that can weigh the evidence,” he says. “It’s supposed to be that kind of deliberative process, not just an executive order, sign-with-a-pen change.”
Who else is making the change?
In the days after Trump signed the order, some other institutions jumped on board quickly.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center began using “Gulf of America” in its public forecasts, though the “Gulf of Mexico” still appears in some places on the weather service’s website.
The energy company Chevron used the name in its quarterly earnings report released Friday.
Google made headlines by announcing it will update Google Maps as soon as the name is changed in official government sources, in accordance with its “longstanding practice.”
The name change will only apply to users in the U.S., Google added. Users in Mexico will continue to see “Gulf of Mexico.”
“Also longstanding practice: When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too,” the company explained.
Google officially started rolling out the change on Feb. 10 after the GNIS officially updated the gulf’s name in its system. For users outside of the U.S. and Mexico, the label reads: Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).
Google says it determines an app user’s location based on data from their phone operating system, such as their SIM, network and locale. The names that web users see are based on the region they select in their search settings or device’s location.
Apple quietly rolled out the change later that day.
What is Mexico saying?
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, pictured in early January, said the U.S. should be called “Mexican America” in response to Trump’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum initially laughed off Trump’s order.
When Trump raised the idea in early January, Sheinbaum retorted that North America be renamed “América Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” referencing a phrase from a 19th-century document. She said the week of Trump’s inauguration that he could call the gulf whatever he wants.
But she was quick to criticize Google last week after the company announced its plans to conform.
At a press conference on Thursday, Sheinbaum showed reporters a copy of a letter she sent to Google in which she argued that the U.S. cannot unilaterally rename the gulf. She cited the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which says a country’s territorial sovereignty only extends 12 nautical miles from its coastline.
“If a country wants to change the designation of something in the sea, it would only apply up to 12 nautical miles. It cannot apply to the rest, in this case, the Gulf of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said. “This is what we explained in detail to Google.”
NPR has reached out to Google.
Rain isn’t sure how much leverage that argument carries, noting that while the U.S. recognizes some of the convention’s provisions, it has never actually ratified it.
“It’s a rationale,” he says of Sheinbaum’s argument. “I don’t know if the Mexican president’s going to get anywhere, but I think she can at least put this up as a protest.”
Has this happened elsewhere?
The Gulf of Mexico is far from the only contentious body of water in the world. Several have different names in different countries, reflecting territorial disputes or broader geopolitical tensions.
One famous example is the body of water south of China, which much of the world calls the South China Sea. Neighboring Asian countries — who claim parts of it — use different terminology: China calls it the South Sea, Vietnam calls it the Eastern Sea and the Philippines has designated parts of it as the West Philippine Sea.
“These differing names, which also extend down to the hundreds of islands, reefs, and other features in the South China Sea, are not just semantic; they each advance a nationalist narrative and a historical claim,” Edmund Lin wrote in The Diplomat last year.
Another prominent example is the body of water that separates the Arabian Peninsula from Iran. It has long been known as the Persian Gulf and is still called that in much of the world. But Arab nations in the region call it the Arabian Gulf.
“Since the 1960s, rivalry between Persians and Arabs, along with the growth of Arab nationalism and evolving Western political and economic interests, has prompted an increasing use of the term ‘Arabian Gulf’ when referring to the region’s body of water,” explains the Strauss Center for International Security and Law.
Google Maps calls it the “Persian Gulf (also known as the Arabian Gulf).”
There’s also a naming dispute over what is widely known as the Sea of Japan — but referred to as the East Sea by neighboring North and South Korea. Google Maps labels it the Sea of Japan for Japanese users, the East Sea for South Korean viewers and uses both names — stylized as Sea of Japan (East Sea) — for everyone else.
Another body of water that has different names is the river that runs from Colorado through to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s called the Rio Grande on the U.S. side, and the Rio Bravo in Mexico.
And Trump’s order may have inspired others to call for further changes: Ukraine’s United24media reported that a Russian politician has proposed changing the name of the Black Sea to the Russian Sea, “for domestic use within Russia only.”
Rain acknowledges that some of these longstanding differences and disputes come with the territory. But he is wary of a scenario in which place names become so subject to change depending on where people are that they lose their meaning.
“Having some common understanding of place names, bodies of water, continents and so on, I think it’s a really necessary base to build our civilization on,” he says. “I think those place names are very, very important and really laden with meaning, not just sort of casually changed just with a stroke of a pen.”
Did Mexico and Canada outsmart Trump in his trade war? Seems like it
Mexico and Canada figured out how to twist Trump’s ego, so we would back off on imposing a 25% tariff for 30 days. Good for them.
It’s not entirely clear whether Mexico and Canada played Donald Trump in his tariffs war, but it sure seems so — at least, temporarily.
Trump is boasting that Mexico and Canada buckled to his 25% tariff after a head-spinning clash with America’s largest trading partners.
At least for now, Mexico and Canada have outsmarted Trump by bolstering border security with measures already underway or that can easily be carried out.
Mexico and Canada made Trump think he won
I love that Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau twisted Trump’s ego to back off for 30 days. They obviously figured out that Trump hates bad press and hates spooking the stock market even more.
All that, no doubt, played a role in Trump agreeing on Monday to hold back on imposing a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods if those countries don’t stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigration, which are just an excuse for Trump’s bigger endgame.
In the face-saving deals, Mexico agreed to deploy 10,000 soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border, and Canada agreed to reinforce the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, including appointing a fentanyl czar, listing cartels as terrorists and creating a joint strike force to combat organized crime.
Canada reportedly had already laid out some of those border security measures and threw a few other things into the mix to please Trump.
And Mexico had already been doing Trump’s dirty work on immigration.
Sheinbaum got a key concession from Trump
Back in 2019, then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador deployed thousands of soldiers to Mexico’s southern border to crack down on migrants heading to the U.S.
Most recently, Mexico had begun cracking down on migrants and setting up temporary shelters for Trump’s deportees.
Deploying 10,000 soldiers to the border didn’t appear to be too much of a hassle for Sheinbaum. And she appeared fine to let Trump do his victory dance.
Furthermore, Sheinbaum said Trump has agreed to combat the flow of high-powered weapons illegally smuggled into Mexico, which the cartels use for their drug and human trafficking and the terrible violence there.
Trump didn’t mention that as part of the deal in his social media post, but if it’s true, that means Sheinbaum got an important concession. Don’t forget that Mexico is suing U.S. gunmakers over weapons smuggled into the country.
Trump is only half addressing the fentanyl problem
Trump isn’t wrong to go after fentanyl trafficking, considering that the drug has killed tens of thousands of people in the United States.
Most of that fentanyl — 96.6% — comes from Mexico, and only a miniscule amount — 0.2% — comes from Canada, according to CNN.
In fiscal 2024, U.S. border authorities say they seized 21,889 pounds of fentanyl, and of that amount, 43 pounds were seized at the Canadian border.
What Trump gets wrong is the fact that he isn’t much interested in combating drug use or the demand for it in the U.S. That makes it nearly impossible to end drug trafficking and addiction.
Trump has the chance to do something about it by aggressively curbing weapons smuggling into Mexico and confronting Americans’ drug addiction.
But nope. That requires investing and caring for people on drugs. Trump isn’t interested in saving them or preventing others from using the deadly drug.
Trump leaves industries vulnerable. That’s wrong
Trump has bigger plans.
He’s obsessed with sticking it to Mexico and now wants to annex Canada as the 51st state at any price.
He’s leveraging the threat of tariffs to punish Mexico and eventually break Canada into folding as part of the U.S. (He has said as much). All while trying to grab Greenland and the Panama Canal by any means necessary.
Trump only reacts to money and strength, which must have helped Trudeau. He stood firm and ready to retaliate with a 25% tariff against U.S. goods. He rallied his countrymen and women against Trump’s imperialistic incursions.
But make no mistake. This pause is only that.
Overall, the three countries trade an estimated $1.8 trillion worth goods and services. Trump shouldn’t use that for his imperialistic fantasies
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