Mexican president to Trump: Guns, 'demand for drugs' to blame for border woes

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo responded to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to embargo goods from neighboring countries by blaming violence in her nation on guns imported from the U.S. and America’s insatiable demand for drugs.

Trump vowed Monday that when he takes office in January he’ll impose a 25% tariff on Mexican goods sold in the U.S. until Mexico puts an end to migrants and drugs entering through the two countries’ shared border. His chief complaint is regarding fentanyl.

Mexico’s newly elected leader took aim at her future American counterpart during a Tuesday morning briefing on healthcare, which she began by reading a scathing open letter to Trump.

“Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country,” she charged. “We do not produce the weapons, we do not consume synthetic drugs.”

Mexican armed forces and prosecutors have reported the seizure of “tons” of drugs and more than 10,000 weapons in 2024. They claim to have also arrested nearly 16,000 people for violence related to drug trafficking.

“For humanitarian reasons, we have always expressed Mexico’s willingness to prevent the continuation of the fentanyl epidemic in the United States, which is, moreover, a problem of consumption and public health in the society of this country,” Pardo wrote.

She also took issue with Trump’s allegations Mexico isn’t working to curb illegal immigration into the U.S.

“According to figures from your country’s Border and Customs Patrol (CBP), encounters at the border between Mexico and the United States have been reduced by 75% from December 2023 to November 2024,” the letter said.

A promise to secure the United States’ borders was a key component of Trump’s reelection campaign.

Pardo suggested the U.S. and Mexico “jointly arrive” at figuring out “another model of labor mobility that is necessary for your country” while also addressing the problems causing migrants to leave their homelands.

“If a percentage of what the United States allocates to war is dedicated to peacebuilding and development, the mobility of people will be fundamentally addressed,” her letter claimed.

According to Pardo, if Trump proceeds to tax foreign imports, Mexico and other nations will respond in kind and that will only hurt consumers.

“President Trump, we are not going to address the migration phenomenon or drug use in the United States with threats or tariffs,”Pardo wrote.

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