By Alma Muñoz and Néstor Jiménez on December 11, 2024 from Mexico City
Claudia Sheinbaum
In view of the appointment of the next U.S. ambassador to Mexico, retired Colonel Ronald D. Johnson, former CIA officer and former member of special forces of the army, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo assured that “with this ambassador or with others we will defend our sovereignty, our condition of equality and we will collaborate and cooperate in everything that is required, but always in the interest of the people of Mexico and the nation.”
Mexicans “can be certain that we will always defend Mexico as a free, sovereign and independent country. I am convinced that “on all issues there will be agreement, always defending Mexico, putting its name on high and without subordinating ourselves to the needs of the United States alone,” she stressed.
She emphasized that in Mexico “we have an enormous cultural and economic wealth and any collaboration, coordination with the government, particularly with the United States, will be of equals, we always have to defend it”.
She recalled that especially during the government of Felipe Calderón “there was a lot of subordination; we are not. We are going to collaborate, we are going to coordinate, but without subordination. Always putting Mexico’s name on high”.
She added: “in the face of the ambassador that President Trump appointed yesterday or the actions that have been carried out, not only in Sinaloa, but throughout the country, these are actions that we have to develop and that are being done with the security strategy that we propose”.
Scheinbaum went on to explain that both governments must collaborate and cited the common border of more than 3,000 kilometers.
As an example, she mentioned the entry of fentanyl into the United States. “Obviously we are going to collaborate, it is even a humanitarian issue, but we also want them to collaborate so that not so many weapons enter Mexico.”
It is not only a matter of drug trafficking, “which we are going to collaborate on, but also of the violence that is generated in Mexico, particularly with the entry of weapons. 75 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico come from the United States,” she added.
The President indicated that these are issues to be raised at a high-level negotiating table. “We collaborate, we coordinate information, we work together, always respecting our sovereignty, but also in the interest of the Americans and Mexicans.
These are collaborations and coordination that “have occurred and must occur with respect for our sovereignty”. She recalled that former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “put a limit to the agents operating in Mexico, from different agencies. That is to say, yes they can be operating in Mexico, but Mexico needs information, because finally they require a permit. It is what any country would do, it is not something in particular”.
She stressed that this is the respect in the relationship that Mexico is asking for “and we will always ask for. We want a decrease in violence and we want the construction of peace, a decrease in homicides and other high impact crimes, many of them linked to organized crime, and that means a decrease in the entry of weapons into Mexico”.