Trump attacks on Venezuela put Mexico on alert | Donald Trump News

The attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of the president Nicolas Maduro The measures taken over the weekend sent shockwaves across Latin America, where many countries fear a return to a period of overt US interventionism.

These fears are particularly acute in Mexico, a neighbor and long-time ally of the United States.

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The country is one of several — along with Cuba and Colombia — that U.S. President Donald Trump singled out in remarks after Saturday’s attack on Venezuela, which killed dozens and was widely condemned as a human rights abuse. international law.

Trump suggested the United States could carry out military strikes on mexican territory in the name of the fight against drug traffickers.

“We’re going to have to do something with Mexico,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday morning, after the strikes in Venezuela.

“She [President Claudia Sheinbaum] He is very afraid of the cartels,” he added. “They run Mexico.”

“We are free and sovereign”

Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s threats by firmly emphasizing Mexican sovereignty.

“We categorically reject any interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” Sheinbaum said in comments to the media on Monday.

“It is necessary to reaffirm that in Mexico it is the people who govern and that we are a free and sovereign country,” she added. “Cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no.”

Even in good times, Mexican leaders have struck a balance between seeking productive relations with their powerful northern neighbor and defending their interests against possible U.S. encroachment.

This balancing act has become more difficult as the Trump administration employs rhetoric and policies that draw parallels to earlier eras of imperial intervention.

“Historically, there are a number of U.S. interventions that are part of the history of Mexican nationalism,” Pablo Piccato, a professor of Mexican history at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera.

Many of these cases occupy an important place in the country’s national memory. The United States launched a war against Mexico in 1846, during which American troops occupied Mexico City and annexed huge swathes of territory, including modern-day California, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Later, during the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to 1920, U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson worked with conservative forces in Mexico to overthrow the country’s pro-reform president.

American forces also bombed the port city of Veracruz in 1914 and sent forces into northern Mexico to hunt down revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.

“These moments are considered important in Mexican history,” Piccato said.

“There is a quote attributed to Mexican President Porfirio Díaz: ‘Poor Mexico. So far from God, so close to the United States.'”

In recent statements, Trump has linked U.S. history in the region to his current agenda. In announcing Saturday’s strike, he cited the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century policy used by the United States to assert primacy over the Western Hemisphere.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’re way past it. They call it the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ now,” Trump said.

On Monday, the US State Department also common an image of Trump on social media with the caption: “This is OUR hemisphere.”

“Balanced on a thin wire”

Sheinbaum’s insistence on Mexican sovereignty has not stopped her from offering concessions to Trump on key priorities, such as migration, security and trade.

Faced with Trump’s threats of 25 percent tariffs last February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 Mexican National Guard troops to his country’s border with the United States, to help limit irregular immigration and drug trafficking.

Mexico has also maintained close security ties with the United States and cooperated in its operations against criminal groups., notably through the extradition of certain drug traffickers.

In February, for example, Sheinbaum’s government extradited 29 criminal suspects the United States accused of drug trafficking and other charges. In August, it sent 26 more suspects to the United States, earning a statement of gratitude from the Trump administration.

Washington has historically pressured Mexico to take a hard line in the fight against drugs, leading to policies that some Mexicans blame for increased violence and insecurity in their country.

Yet even as Sheinbaum has received praise for her handling of relations with Trump, she has consistently said that unilateral U.S. military action on Mexican territory would constitute a red line.

Experts say Sheinbaum’s willingness to cooperate should encourage the U.S. government not to launch attacks on Mexican soil.

“Sheinbaum has gone out of his way to cooperate with the United States,” said Stephanie Brewer, director of the Mexico program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a U.S.-based research group. “There would be no rational reason to sever this bilateral relationship by crossing the only red line set by Mexico. »

But the strikes on Venezuela also underscored the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive posture toward Latin America.

“I don’t think U.S. strikes on Mexican territory are any more or less likely than they were before the attacks in Venezuela,” Brewer said. “But they make very clear that the Trump administration’s threats must be taken seriously and that the United States is prepared to violate international law through the use of military force.”

“Sheinbaum is balancing on a thinner and thinner wire,” she added.