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U.S. Neighbor Scrambles to Charm Trump Amid Takeover Threats

The Mexican leader spoke with President Donald Trump by phone for 15 minutes on Monday.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says she has had a “good conversation” with President Donald Trump about “Mexico’s sovereignty” and “reducing drug trafficking.”

The left-wing Sheinbaum, 63, has toned down her vocal opposition to Trump, posting to X that “collaboration and cooperation within a framework of mutual respect” between the United States and Mexico will “always yield results.”

Her statement comes on the heels of Trump, 79, threatening to sic the U.S. Military on Mexican drug cartels, which he has repeatedly claimed are “running Mexico.”

With Trump already sending in special forces to abduct Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro this month, it appears Sheinbaum is doing what she can to keep American boots off the ground in her country of 130 million. She revealed later Monday that the call lasted 15 minutes and was “friendly.”

“We had a very good conversation with the President of the United States, Donald Trump,” she posted to X, along with a photo. “We talked about various topics, including security with respect to our sovereignties, the reduction of drug trafficking, trade, and investments.”

She continued, “Collaboration and cooperation within a framework of mutual respect always yield results.”

Sheinbaum previously rejected Trump’s offer to use American military force to take down Mexican drug cartels, which he claims are smuggling drugs into the United States that are killing Americans by the “millions”—though data suggests fentanyl deaths in the United States are in the tens of thousands annually, not millions.

The Mexican leader reportedly told Trump in May, “Sovereignty is not for sale. Sovereignty is loved and defended.” She said the two countries could work together on the issue, but “with you in your territory and us in ours.”

Trump, emboldened by his successful abduction of Maduro, in which no U.S. service members died, has made military threats against Cuba, Colombia, and, most strongly, against Greenland and its NATO ally protectorate, Denmark, which has condemned his imperial ambitions.

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The president told Fox News last week that the United States may “hit” land targets in Mexico to combat the cartels, with or without Sheinbaum giving the OK.

Remarks like this have officials in Mexico City on edge.

“When we saw what they did in Venezuela, it made us think, ‘Oh boy, this is more serious than we thought, and we are on the list of who could be next, and worse, we have been warned,’” a senior Mexican official told The New York Times over the weekend.

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Sheinbaum sharply criticized the U.S. operation to arrest Maduro, sharing a passage on the U.N. charter that says countries should refrain from using force against the sovereignty of another nation. She said Trump asked Mexico for its opinion on the situation during their call.

“I told him very clearly that we had a Constitution with very clear constitutional principles, and that’s where the conversation ended,” Sheinbaum told reporters, according to Milenio.

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