In the weeks before he took office, Donald J. Trump repeatedly vowed to deport the most people in US history and wage war on the border, all the while his transition team refused requests from state leaders to meet on the results of his promised measures.
He has made countries like Mexico lash out with his attacks, saying immigrants were flooding the United States with fentanyl and threatening to impose devastating tariffs. He also entered Panama, repeatedly insisting that the country allow China to take control, and forced the United States to intervene and take back the Panama Canal.
So as Mr. Trump being inaugurated in Washington on Monday, the usual congratulatory messages were also accompanied by some of the leaders of Latin America who deviated from the normal norms of interaction.
“There is no reason why Mexico should hang its head down or feel inferior. We are a great country, a cultural power,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said at her daily morning news conference. “Our relationship with the United States will be balanced.”
He also tried to ensure that unauthorized Mexicans living in the United States could face removal. “Mexicans are very important to the US economy, and the Trump administration knows it,” Ms. Sheinbaum said. “To our men and women: You are not alone, and you must remain calm.”
Mexico is the country with the highest number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, with about four million Mexicans living there without permission by 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.
Mexico’s foreign minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, also said on Monday that Mexico would not support the expected move to restore the policy known as Remain in Mexico, which under the first Trump presidency forced immigrants who applied for asylum to wait in Mexico until the time came. of their hearings in immigration court. This policy has been a boon for members of drug cartels, who target asylum seekers to extort, kidnap and rape them, human rights groups say.
“Yes, they can; it is their right,” said Mr. de la Fuente about the United States. But while he allowed “some agreements” to be reached, he pointed out that Mexico has no legal obligation to process asylum applications for migrants in the United States.
Hours later, in a message on social media, Ms. Sheinbaum congratulated Mr. “As neighbors and traders, dialogue, respect and cooperation will always be the hallmark of our relationship,” he wrote.
But during the meeting of the signing of the laws of the executive body, Mr. Trump said Monday he would slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada on February 1, accusing the two countries, as they have done in the past, of allowing undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the country. United States. Ms. Sheinbaum and some of her administration officials have said that Mexico will have to retaliate against the United States at its expense.
After the ordination of Mr. Trump, the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, who warned earlier this month that he is ready to expel the American troops from the country if Mr. the office.
But the deputy minister of foreign affairs, Tony García, in a phone interview on Monday afternoon said that his country and several of its neighbors did not plan to receive more flights carrying deportees without discussing the plan with the incoming administration.
“They can’t be done unilaterally,” he said, of mass deportations.
Mr. García said that although there are currently no plans to end the military agreement between Honduras and the United States, which allows US operations from a large military base, Castro’s administration still considers it a possibility, so “they take it very 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 Mr. García, the countries agreed that “they will not allow anyone to be deported by force. If the country says no one can enter, no plane can touch the ground.”
Honduras has an estimated 525,000 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Mr. García said they found planes carrying more than half a million people deported from the United States in the last decade. He said the country plans to continue acquiring such aircraft, but the two governments must first make a plan.
“We are compatible with cooperation,” he said. “Not to be humble.”
His words were some harsh words for the new president.
In Panama, the purpose of the recent criticism of Mr. Trump, including his false allegations that China controls the Panama Canal and that the United States should take it back, President José Raúl Mulino dismissed the president’s claims, which he repeated during his first speech.
“The Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to be under the control of Panama,” said Mr. Mulino in the statement included in X.
However, later in the day, the Panamanian regulator’s office announced that auditors had visited the region’s maritime authorities to begin an audit of the Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of Hutchison Ports Holding. The company is a major port company and is the country’s largest port concessionaire. It is also part of CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.
“The purpose of this comprehensive study is to ensure the proper use and transparency of public resources,” said the regulator’s office.
For Mr. Trump opening speech – where he said “he will repel the disastrous invasion of our country” – he often focused on the district, as did many of the executive orders he signed Monday night.
But other leaders reaffirmed their intention to work with the new president and support his policy goals.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who has a close relationship with Mr. Trump and his family were invited to the inauguration but did not attend, said Cindy Portal, the chief executive of the Salvadoran foreign ministry, in a radio interview. Instead, the country was represented by its ambassador to the United States.
Ms. Portal did not mention any plans to postpone the deportation of Salvadorans, who are also one of the largest groups of unauthorized immigrants in the country. El Salvador had 750,000 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States by 2022, according to the. the Pew Research Center.
Instead, Ms. Portal emphasized the Bukele administration’s ties to Mr. Trump’s son and Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state. Trump, confirmed Monday night.
“The message we are giving to the people of Salvador as the government of El Salvador is to wait and not be ahead of us,” he said. “President Trump has been clear about bringing back bad guys who come in to destroy.”
He said that if the people of Salvador have not committed a crime in the United States, they have nothing to fear.
The countries in this region that are divided by the American sanctions had different answers about the return of Mr. The government of Nicaragua remained silent, while the minister of the interior of Venezuela wished Mr. Trump is “the best.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the “false designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism,” in a message on social media. “The result of the extreme economic sanctions imposed by Trump has been to cause shortages among our people and a large increase in the flow of people from Cuba to the United States,” the statement said.
But, in turn, countries that have been close trading partners of the United States are also seeing their economies in jeopardy. By the end of Monday, Mexican leaders had not responded to Mr. But Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, did.
“Our country is fully prepared to respond to any of these situations,” said Mr. LeBlanc. “We still believe it could be a mistake.”
Reporting contributed by Simon Romero, James Wagner again Yubela Mendoza Mexico City; Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Toronto; Genevieve Glatsky Bogotá, Colombia; Mary Triny Zea from Panama City; Gabriel Labrador from San Salvador, El Salvador; again Joan Suazo from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
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