A mixture of tact and persuasion: Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum managed to convince her American counterpart Donald Trump to grant her country a stay before increasing customs duties, but without dissipating economic uncertainties.
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The two presidents are known to get along despite their opposition on the political spectrum.
At least three times now, the American president has granted Mexico Customs to Mexico City and Donald Trump qualified the president of “wonderful woman”, far from the sometimes tense relations with certain other world leaders.
Once again on Thursday, the Republican announced Thursday that he had agreed with her so as not to note customs duties on Mexican products, while he was threatening to bring surcharge to 30%.
Mexico City, the most important business partner in the United States after the European Union taken as a whole, thus obtained a 90-day stay. This amounts to maintaining customs duties on products entering the United States outside the North American Free Trade Agreement (ACEUM) at 25%.
A result obtained at the end of the ninth telephone conversation between the two presidents since the return to power of Donald Trump in January, which then threatened to sanction the exports of Mexico due to the alleged tolerance of the latter with regard to fentanyl traffic to the United States.
Keep one’s head
How did she do it? “Keeping her head cold,” said the president herself to journalists on Friday.
The 63 -year -old physicist and committed left -wing activist added that she avoided “confrontation” with the billionaire.
According to Ms. Sheinbaum, the Mexicans “should never bend the spine” and Mr. Trump recognized his courage, declaring during one of their discussion: “You are hard,” according to the New York Times.
“Mexico is a lot for the United States (…) they know it,” said Sheinbaum.
Thanks to the free trade treaty between the United States, Mexico and Canada, almost 85% of Mexican exports were exempt from customs duties.
If Mexico has managed to escape general customs duties of 30% on its exports for the moment, its automotive sector will be subject to customs duties of 25% when in May it had obtained that Washington reduces them to 15%.
Its sectors of steel and aluminum, as for other countries, are subject to customs duties of 50%.
The Mexican government however considers the recent postponement of the application of customs duties as a victory.
“Without any flagorner, I can tell you that the way our president is conducting her discussions, her approach, the firmness with which she defends the interests of Mexico, her ability to convince President Trump, are very important,” said the Mexican Minister of the economy Marcelo Ebrard, who directs negotiations on customs surcharges.
Giving-back
Ms. Sheinbaum also seems to have adopted an “giving-and” attitude, by deploying thousands of soldiers on the border with the United States in the face of President Trump’s concerns about the influx of migrants and drug trafficking.
The president insists for her part that she “did not give anything” in negotiations with Donald Trump and the discussions continue between the two neighbors for security agreements to solve fentanyl and drug traffic problems.
Ms. Sheinbaum has also highlighted the possibility of more imports of American products to rebalance the trade balance.
Some fear that the Mexican president is simply trying to save time.
The postponement of the application of customs duties “does not solve the problem of uncertainty, we come back to the starting point,” said an expert in trade in the Center for Strategic and International Washington Studies, interviewed by AFP.
