President Claudia Sheinbaum at her morning press conference

Sheinbaum: No Need to Take the Bait on Every Trump Statement, He Has His Way of Communicating

ByAlonso Urrutia and Alma E. Muñoz

This article by Alonso Urrutia and Alma E. Muñoz originally appeared in the June 18, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. Faced with the renewed onslaught from the head of the White House, Donald Trump, against Mexico over the alleged dominance of drug trafficking cartels, President Claudia Sheinbaum dismissed his assertions: “he has his way of communicating. There’s no need to take the bait on every one of his statements.”

She asserted that these statements also have to do with timing, he addressed Americans in his way, but “we don’t want and shouldn’t enter into a personal debate with President Trump.”

Sheinbaum said she has made these points at various moments, but I have told him personally and when he came I told the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin: in Mexico there is a State and there are Mexican institutions and there are Cabinet heads in addition to the president.

“Here is Omar García Harfuch, who was about to lose his life to a criminal group and who, after that attack, decided to keep dedicating his life.” Here you have the General Secretary of National Defense, in whose recent operation to capture one of organized crime’s most wanted leaders thirty soldiers from the army died. And every day dedicated to protection, head of one of the great institutions. Here is the Admiral every day protecting the seas and coasts, attending to security.

She highlighted that a shipment of weapons was recently seized on national territory. She also referred to assertions that ground actions will be reinforced, on which, she said, it would be very good if they did their work in their territory and we in Mexico did ours.