Bad timing & high stakes for potential Sheinbaum - Trump G7 meeting
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum at a press conference in Mexico City. Image credit: Presidency of Mexico.
by David Agren.
President Claudia Sheinbaum announced details of her trip to Canada next week for the Group of Seven Leader’s Summit in Kananaskis, a resort in the Alberta Rockies, and her first meeting with US President Donald Trump.
The president unveiled a hectic travel schedule, which involved taking a commercial flight on Monday – despite there being no direct connections between Mexico City and Calgary – participating in the Summit on Tuesday, then returning for the Wednesday mañanera (morning press conference).
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney extended the G7 invite – which Sheinbaum pondered for more than a month prior to accepting – ostensibly to talk trade and tariffs. Canadian officials specifically expressed hopes for sidelines discussions between the three North American leaders ahead of next year’s scheduled review of the USMCA trade agreement, according to The Globe and Mail. But thorny issues loom over the encounter, including Mexican discontent with Trump’s migration crackdowns, his planned tax on remittances and the possible US pursuit of narco-politicians.
Mexican media and pro-government influencers predictably seized on news of Sheinbaum flying commercial rather than trade, tariffs or geopolitics. The same occurred ahead of her trip to the G20 Summit in Brazil last fall – her first foreign journey as president – as she flew economy class from the little used Felipe Ángeles International Airport, one of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s prestige projects. Such parsimony keeps with AMLO’s austere ethos, while providing a safe narrative in domestic politics – her main priority – should talks go south.
Sheinbaum didn’t confirm a meeting with Trump at the summit, but said it was “very likely.” Proponents of Sheinbaum attending the summit pushed for the the leaders’ first encounter to take place on neutral ground – away from the Trump Mar-a-Lago club or the White House, where world leaders have been ambushed on camera.
Sheinbaum mentioned her tête-à-tête with Trump in the context of a lengthy response to a question on meeting her US counterpart, but also a possible visit from Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Mexico City. The topic of trade seemed distant with the Los Angeles protests making headlines.
“This topic can be addressed, in general, the topic of migration, of our Mexicans, our migrant brothers and sisters living in the United States and many other topics that need to be on the agenda, which we're going to discuss,” Sheinbaum said June 9.
“We’ll see if this bilateral G7 meeting in Canada with President Trump takes place,” Sheinbaum continued. “But, separately, there’s a meeting planned with the Secretary of State to come to our country. And the idea is to find a global framework for agreement, for understanding, that will allow us to move forward during these three and a half years, or a little more, that we’ll be working with the Trump administration.”
But Rubio never arrived in Mexico City. And the news cycle turned inauspicious ahead of Sheinbaum’s trip north.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, a former US ambassador to Mexico, subbed for Rubio, meeting the president on June 11 during a two-hour encounter that Sheinbaum called “a courtesy visit.”
Landau later caused waves for his social media activity. He responded to an X post by a minor Morena functionary in Jalisco state supporting the Los Angeles protests, and taunting US officials in vulgar terms to cancel her visa. Landau pointed out that she didn’t even have a visa to cancel – raising an enormous social media storm.
Ahead of the Landau meeting, Reuters reported the US government was seeking the extradition of politicians tied to drug cartels. Such a request would build on the White House accusation from February, when it announced tariffs on Mexico due to an “intolerable” alliance between drug cartels and the Mexican government.
Sheinbaum called the February accusation “slander.” The foreign ministry called the Reuters report “absolutely false” – with the US Embassy in Mexico City responding to the X post with applause emojis.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was next in adding to the complications for Mexico. She alleged in the Oval Office, “Claudia Sheinbaum came out and encouraged more protests in LA and I condemn her for that. She should not be encouraging violent protests that are going on.”
Sheinbaum denied inciting any protests in the United States, calling the accusations “false.” “We have never called for violent mobilization,” she said at the June 11 mañanera. “We have always been in favour of peaceful protests.”
She said two days earlier of the protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles – which have drawn support across the political aisle in Mexico – “Our position is, first and foremost, respect for human rights above all else. We do not agree with these actions that violate the human rights of migrants, which criminalize them, as if they were criminals. They are honest workers who contribute to the United States economy.”
But her words have drawn attention in Republican and Trump circles, especially her comments on the need to “mobilize” against the tax on remittances.
Mexico has vigorously objected to a tax of 3.5 percent on remittances in Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” which passed the House of Representatives and is being debated in the Senate. Remittances totalled $64.75 billion in 2024, according to the Bank of Mexico.
“If necessary, we will mobilize, because we do not want there to be taxes on remittances from our countrymen from the United States to Mexico, which serve the neediest,” Sheinbaum said at a May 24 rally in Mazatlán.
Gerardo Fernández Noroña, the firebrand president of the Senate, laughed at the suggestion from a US senator, whose name didn’t remember, to quadruple the remittance tax. “They want to put out the fire with gasoline,” he quipped. The Senator in question, Eric Schmitt, shot back with a taunt, saying on X, “Guess what? The remittance tax just got 5 per cent higher.”
Sheinbaum has been hailed as the “Trump whisperer” and credited with beguiling him in their talks on tariffs. This week that status took a hit over her misinterpreted “mobilization” remarks. The G7 will show if she can regain her sure footing, and beguile him once again on the broader bilateral agenda of migration and security matters, too.