Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday ruled out a trade war with the United States after speaking with President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened stiff tariffs to halt illegal immigration.
"There will not be a potential tariff war," Sheinbaum, who has been scrambling to head off threatened tariffs of 25 percent on Mexican goods, told a daily news conference.
She was speaking a day after a telephone call with Trump, who has threatened to slap tariffs on Canada and China in addition to Mexico over illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
After their call, Sheinbaum and Trump offered differing accounts of what they had discussed regarding migration.
Trump claimed that Mexico's left-wing president had "agreed to stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border."
Sheinbaum later said she had discussed a policy already in place, and denied Trump's version again Thursday.
"I can assure you... that we would never -- we would not be capable -- of proposing that we were going to close the border," she said, adding: "Of course we do not agree with that."
She said she had assured the Republican leader that a caravan of migrants assembled in southern Mexico, over which Trump had expressed concern, "will not reach the northern border," pointing to Mexico's "strategy" of preventing such convoys crossing its territory.
She said that after that, the talks had no longer revolved around the threat of tariff hikes.
Writing Wednesday on X, Sheinbaum said she and Trump had also discussed "strengthening collaboration on security issues" as well as "the campaign we are conducting in the country to prevent the consumption of fentanyl."
Trump caused panic among some of the biggest US trading partners on Monday when he said he would impose tariffs of 25 percent on Mexican and Canadian imports and 10 percent on goods from China.
He accused them of not doing enough to halt the "invasion" of the US by drugs "in particular fentanyl" and undocumented migrants.
Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard warned Wednesday that some 400,000 jobs in the United States could be lost if Trump followed through on his threat.
He cited a study based on figures from US carmakers that manufacture in Mexico.
Sheinbaum said Thursday that further conversations were planned between her government and Trump's transition team before his January 20 inauguration.
