‘A dog that barks doesn’t bite”—so goes the saying among supporters of Mexico’s ruling National Regeneration Movement, or Morena. Faced with the threat of tariffs from the United States, Mexico’s left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist by training, pulled off something it is hard to imagine any progressive politician stateside achieving: She stood her ground in dealing with Donald Trump while successfully defending her political interests.
“He is a transactional leader who is perfectly happy to cut deals with socialists.”
Following Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Sheinbaum stated that Mexico would respond in kind with retaliatory tariffs, but that she remained open to dialogue with Trump. By Monday morning, the president announced that tariffs would be put on pause for 30 days. The lesson that Sheinbaum appears to have learned from her mentor and predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, is that Trump is less of an ideologue than many of his fervent supporters seem to think; on the contrary, he is a transactional leader who is perfectly happy to cut deals with socialists.