Sheinbaum’s focus on sovereignty is a way of buying time in her dealings with Trump

The recent appearance by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico at a ceremony to lay the first stone of a new police academy in Querétaro state seemed perfunctory enough, given the increasing security co-operation between the two countries.

But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum questioned the visit by Ambassador Ronald Johnson, criticized the state’s governor – a member of an opposition party – for failing to seek federal authorization for a security project with a foreign government and took issue with comments from the state’s security officials that the academy would provide training by U.S. agents.

“We have a good relationship with the United States government regarding security and other matters,” Ms. Sheinbaum said last week. “What we ask of state governors, the ambassador and the U.S. government is simply that Mexican laws be complied with in everything related to international co-operation.”

The episode demonstrates the challenges facing Ms. Sheinbaum as she seeks to placate the Trump administration on security matters while trying to reach a trade deal to reduce or remove U.S. tariffs on Mexican autos, steel and aluminum.

The United States is increasingly targeting Ms. Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party for alleged ties to drug cartels. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted a Mexican governor and senator, and Washington has revoked the travel visas of dozens of Mexican politicians.

Ms. Sheinbaum’s complaints regarding the U.S. ambassador’s appearance at the police academy exposed a pattern of opposition governors demonstrating a willingness to work with the U.S. government on security matters in a way that Ms. Sheinbaum and her party consider violations of Mexican sovereignty.

In April, two Central Intelligence Agency officials died in a car crash in northern Chihuahua state after accompanying state police in the dismantling of a methamphetamine lab. The incident drew the ire of Ms. Sheinbaum because neither CIA official was accredited to work in Mexico.

“Defending sovereignty is not mere rhetoric − it is part of our history, and we must always defend it,” the President said at her Friday news conference.

Sovereignty has long underpinned Ms. Sheinbaum’s discourse. But an analysis by the political consultancy Spin found that she has increased her use of words such as “sovereignty,” “foreign,” “independence,” “homeland” and the “United States” in her major 2026 speeches.

And she has shot back at Mr. Trump’s claims that the country is controlled by drug cartels by demanding U.S. action on gun smuggling and telling the U.S. to address its own drug consumption problems.

“Where is the work being done to stop all the cartels or drug distributors in the U.S.?” she quipped in September.

Her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recently spoke of sovereignty, too, while avoiding any mention of Mr. Trump, with whom he famously got along while president. He said of Mr. Johnson, “He’s not a diplomat nor a politician. He acts instead as a meddling cop.”

But analysts say the U.S. accusations of narco-politics implicate close allies of the former president.

The sovereignty discourse “is the only way to turn the tide regarding the credible accusations against key figures in Morena,” said Bárbara Gónzalez, a political commentator in Monterrey. “Abandoning them is not an option” for Ms. Sheinbaum, she added. “Wrapping herself in the flag helps her buy time.”

Trump sticks with tariffs despite widespread disapproval among U.S. voters

Despite the sharpening discourse, Ms. Sheinbaum still expresses optimism about reaching a deal on tariffs with the U.S. Analysts expect the terms of any potential agreement with Mexico to resemble the deal Canada walked away from in August.

Mexico has continued making concessions. Ms. Sheinbaum addressed U.S. concerns about Chinese investments in Mexico by proposing an amendment to the country’s foreign investment law to create a review mechanism to screen for national security concerns.

The Financial Times reported Friday that Mr. Trump urged Ms. Sheinbaum in a call to shrink Mexico’s US$155-billion trade surplus with the U.S. by purchasing more U.S. natural gas. He also proposed more partnerships and deals between U.S. and Mexican energy companies.

Analysts differ on the efficacy of making concessions – which have included sending 92 suspected drug cartel bosses to the U.S., settling a water debt and allowing drones to fly over Mexican territory – while seeing the stern sovereignty talk as a response to the Trump administration’s rising demands.

It is “a symptom of her realizing that those tactical concessions are not going to be enough,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States, adding that many in Washington want to see Ms. Sheinbaum “taking on the connective tissue between organized crime and politics.”

Others see Ms. Sheinbaum drawing from an old political playbook.

“The goal is to eventually move past this administration. And with Trump, the only way to do that is by making concessions, not by constantly confronting him, but by drawing a line so that we are respected,” said Raúl Zepeda Gil, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

“That is a very Mexican way of doing politics – one that works very well with Trump in that it isn’t a functional politics based on rules, visions or ideologies.”