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Claudia Sheinbaum responded to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, suggesting that the U.S. territory that was beforehand a part of Mexico ought to be referred to as “Mexican America.”
The Mexican president’s feedback got here after Trump on Tuesday referred to as for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America” and for Canada to turn into a U.S. state, claims that danger weakening one of many world’s largest buying and selling blocs .
Trump’s proposals got here throughout a freewheeling information convention, through which he additionally refused to rule out utilizing drive to achieve Greenland or take management of the Panama Canal.
The president-elect, who takes workplace in lower than two weeks, has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada until his neighbors do extra to cease migrants and medicines from crossing its two borders, regardless of commerce between three nations. of the bloc’s free commerce settlement, the USMCA.
In his morning information convention Wednesday, Sheinbaum famous {that a} portion of U.S. territory, together with California and Texas, was a part of the Spanish Empire and later impartial Mexico till it ceded the land to Washington within the nineteenth century .
“We’ll name it ‘Mexican America’, sounds good, proper?” he instructed reporters, displaying a 1607 colonial-era map of the area.
The leaders of Mexico and Canada are grappling with how finest to reply to Trump’s more and more aggressive rhetoric in opposition to their international locations with out alienating home audiences.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, who flew to dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in late November after the specter of tariffs was floated, stated there was “an enormous risk” that his nation grew to become a part of the United States. .
Earlier this week, conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford made a “counterproposal” to Trump to purchase Alaska and Minnesota, two US states that share borders with Canada.
In December, Ford launched a multimillion-dollar promoting marketing campaign to advertise Ontario’s financial and cultural ties to the United States in an effort to counter Trump’s antagonism in opposition to Canada.
Melanie Joly, Canada’s international minister, stated Trump’s feedback “present a whole lack of awareness of what makes Canada a powerful nation.” “We won’t ever quit within the face of threats,” he stated on X.
Sheinbaum, a left-wing chief who took workplace in October, has taken a considerably extra combative method to Trump than different world leaders since he received the U.S. election. He initially hinted at retaliatory tariffs in opposition to Washington, although the 2 have since spoken by cellphone and have averted making derogatory feedback about one another in public.
His authorities is bracing for mass deportations of Mexicans and maybe residents of different international locations throughout the northern border, in addition to stress for higher U.S. involvement in preventing drug cartels, in addition to a attainable commerce struggle.
U.S.-born Republican supporter Georganne Burke, a accomplice on the Ottawa-based Pathway Group, a conservative lobbying agency, stated Trump is aware of that neither Canada nor Mexico intends to surrender their sovereignty.
“He’s trolling Canadians, however I feel the overreaction wasn’t justified,” he stated.
