Trump Says Mexico Agreed to Bar Migration to US Border

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC on Nov. 13, 2024. ALLISON ROBBERT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump said on Nov. 27 that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to prevent illegal immigrants from going to the southern border. The Mexican president offered a contrasting description of the same conversation.

“She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border,” Trump wrote in a pair posts on Truth Social. “Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately.”

Sheinbaum’s statement about the conversation appeared to contradict Trump’s summary.

“In our conversation with President Trump, I explained to him the comprehensive strategy that Mexico has followed to address the migration phenomenon, respecting human rights,” Sheinbaum wrote in Spanish on X more than an hour after Trump sent the messages on Truth Social.

“Thanks to this, migrants and caravans are assisted before they reach the border. We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples.”

Sheinbaum’s office and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Two days prior to the conversation between the two leaders, Trump vowed to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada in order to force the two nations to tighten border security and help stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” the president-elect wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s salvo the following day, saying that she'd seek to work with Trump, but that Mexico would impose retaliatory tariffs if the president-elect followed through on his threat.

“One tariff will follow another and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” she said.

The leader also suggested that her administration has indicated Mexico’s willingness to assist in ending the United States’ fentanyl epidemic. Sheinbaum said that illegal border crossings are down while immigrant caravans are no longer crossing the southern border.

Sheinbaum also appeared to put the blame on Americans for consuming the trafficked drugs and American companies for manufacturing the guns that she alleged flow into Mexico and are used by cartels.

“We do not produce weapons, we do not consume the synthetic drugs. Unfortunately, we have the people who are being killed by crime that is responding to the demand in your country,” she said, noting that Chinese companies are blamed for producing fentanyl’s precursor chemicals.

Last month, the Department of Justice indicted eight Chinese companies, alleging they were manufacturing and distributing the precursor chemicals used to produce fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate that has led to tens of thousands of deaths in the United States every year.

Reuters and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.