Mexico – The action can be in the streets of Los Angeles, but the fallout from the protests of immigrants turned politics in Mexico at a delicate moment – a few days before Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum met President Trump during their eagerly awaited face to face.
Sheinbaum has been on the defensive since the interior security secretary Kristi Noem, – during an oval office event in the presence of Trump – accused the Mexican president on Tuesday “of encouraging violent demonstrations”.
Although Sheinbaum has assaulted American immigration raids and supported the rights of immigrants to protest, there is no public violence file that has ever supported violence. One day before Noem’s accusation, she said exactly the opposite and called Mexicans in southern California to act peacefully.
Nevertheless, the personalities of the Mexican opposition adopted the charges of Noem and enthusiastically sought to amplify them. The criticisms also seized Sheinbaum’s comments last month – weeks before the demonstrations of – calling on Mexicans in the United States to “mobilize” against an American tax on cash transfers in Mexico.
An opposition senator Lily Tellez published a video on X last week, accusing Sheinbaum to enhance the compatriots in the United States to “violate the law without consequences, as if it were Mexico”, an assertion reproached by other criticisms.
The accusation dam has put Sheinbaum in a delicate position: it is forced to defend immigrants in the United States, as Mexican leaders have always done so, but cannot be considered as inflamed bilateral tensions. However, she was unleashed with her domestic criticisms as a “anti-patriotic”.
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum attended her morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City in April.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)
“How is Mexicans dare to say that I have promoted violence in the United States?” With what objective? ” The president asked on Friday. “So that there are no good relations between Mexico and the United States?” Or, worse, that the United States doing something in Mexico?
The media coverage of the demonstrations pierced Mexico, where the reports were largely taken on the side of immigrants against American efforts to hold and expel them. Commentators have largely condemned the actions of the Trump administration, while the waves and social media are filled with more sympathetic accounts and videos of immigrants and defenders on the southern California.
Sheinbaum, elected to a six -year term a year ago during a landslide vote, obtained a 70%public approval rating, said polls. His Bloc in power Morena dominates the legislatures of the States and the Mexican Congress. She has little to fear politically of the anger of the opposition parties in shock.
But, in the social media era, the story of Sheinbaum as an actor has gained ground among certain American commentators. They represented it as a kind of manipulator master compromises a violent resistance of his perch in Mexico City.
“This woman, the president of Mexico, speaks of directing an uprising inside America,” said Charlie Kirk, a far -right host, said on June 9 in a video published on X, where he has more than 5 million followers. “And she has a lot to work because she has a lot of dormant cells here.”
In last week’s comments, Sheinbaum adopted non-violence as a daily mantra, citing the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Cesar Chavez.
“Any demonstration must be peaceful,” she told journalists on Friday. “We are still looking for, diplomatically, the defense of the Mexicans outside the country.”
And, while Sheinbaum is a regular at X – where she has 4.3 million followers – she urged people not to “do politics” on the social media forum, where a large part of the controversies on her alleged role in the protests of immigrants took place.
The proliferation of Mexican flags with Los Angeles demonstrations. Sheinbaum has neither approved or criticized the flag, but she expressed a consternation of a largely distributed image – of a naked torso demonstrator brandishing a Mexican flag while he is on the top of a burned car. She described the photo as “provocation”, referring to the dark reasons, but failed to clarify her suspicions.
The demonstrators gathered in front of the federal building during a “No Kings” demonstration on Saturday in downtown Los Angeles.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
The image, Sheinbaum said on Friday: “does not correspond to millions of Mexicans who contribute to the economy of the United States and are the best of people.”
In their widths against Sheinbaum, his adversaries also cited the animated calls of the president to the Mexicans in the United States to “mobilize” against a completely distinct question – the plans of the Trump administration to impose a tax of 3.5% on the sending of foreign funds, part of the bill for massive expenditure of the White House pending at the Congress.
This proposed levy encountered a universal conviction in Mexico, where cash transfers support tens of thousands of poor families and are an economic pinpin of $ 64 billion per year.
In an address last month in the state of northeast of San Luis Potosí, Sheinbaum called the American residents of Mexican descendants – immigrants and those born in the United States – to send letters, emails and messages on social networks to the congress urging legislators to vote against the fund on the fund.
“If necessary, we will mobilize,” said an animated Sheinbaum, raising his right fist, the image recalling his youth days as a leftist student demonstrator.
Sheinbaum has never called for street demonstrations, and even less to violence. But it has also never specified whether the “mobilization” has referred to the organization of rallies, to strengthen diplomatic pressure or another strategy to help to thwart the tax on funding.
The Sheinbaum clip urging people to “mobilize” has been delimited on the Internet. It is the play for those who accused him of fomenting violent demonstrations. Certain online versions have been nicknamed so that Sheinbaum speaks in a strongly accentuated English.
Since Trump took office, Sheinbaum has been widely acclaimed for skillfully managing sensitive bilateral problems such as prices and drug trafficking. While immigrant demonstrations spread across the United States, the Mexican president will work again with his American counterpart at his first meeting at the top of the seven group, which began on Sunday in Canada.
Sheinbaum confirmed on Saturday that she planned to meet Trump in the coming days and would increase the recent treatment of Mexicans in the United States
“We are going to defend Mexicans with dignity,” she told a crowd outside Mexico City.
The Mexican chief clearly indicated that she challenges the vision of the administration of immigrants as “invaders” and Los Angeles demonstrators as an insurrectionists.
“We do not agree with the treatment of honest Mexicans who work every day for the good of the United States and pay their taxes,” said Sheinbaum on Friday. “Eighty percent of their gains remain in the United States, in consumption, in taxes. And these are people who are integrated into life. ”
And Sheinbaum, who studied doctoral studies for four years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, added: “California would not be what it is without Mexican.”
Staff writer Kate Linthicum and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
