During her daily press conference Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s statements that he would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, annex Canada through economic pressure and potentially use military force to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland by declaring that she would re-name the United States “Mexican America.” 

The previous night, Trump called Mexico “a very dangerous place” that “is basically run by the cartels, and we can’t let that happen.” He threatened again to impose “very serious tariffs” unless Mexico stops migrants and drugs from entering the US.

He then said he would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The United States “does most of the work there,” he claimed.

Sheinbaum responded by showing a 1607 world map that called all of North America “Mexican America” and citing an early 1814 constitutional draft of the Mexican independence movement titled “For the Liberty of Mexican America.” 

“Let's call the United States Mexican America, sounds nice, doesn't it? Am I right?” she said in a comedic tone and with a smile from ear to ear.

She followed this by pointing out that Trump had “a good relationship with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador” (known as AMLO), her predecessor and mentor, “a good relationship of cooperation, not subordination.” 

Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the government will respond with “Mexican wisdom” and not “get dragged into” a debate on every statement made by Trump. He responded to the claims that cartels run Mexico: “it's like me saying that they (the drug dealers) rule the state of Pennsylvania (where there is a strong fentanyl problem), but that doesn't get us anywhere, let's see how we can work together.”

Mexican officials have responded similarly to Trump’s threats to carry out military operations in Mexico, ostensibly against drug cartels, with or without the blessing of the Mexican authorities. The Sheinbaum administration and the Mexican bourgeoisie as a whole can only treat Trump’s threats as inconsequential because their fundamental interests are bound up with subordination to US imperialism. Joining and augmenting Trump’s onslaught against migrants, expanding incentives for US capital, and aligning economically and militarily in the confrontation with China, they hope, will prevent US aggression against Mexico, which has only recently secured its place as America’s top trading partner. 

However, such apparent complacency will only embolden the fascistic Trump administration to reach even further. As explained by the World Socialist Web Site on Trump’s speech on Tuesday: 

The second Trump presidency is the consummation of over three decades of continuous imperialist war initiated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, aimed at ensuring the economic and military hegemony of the United States. George H.W. Bush proclaimed the “New World Order” in which there were to be no constraints on the unbridled US imperialist domination of the world.

Trump’s threats against Mexico, Canada, Greenland, and Panama are part of the blowing up the framework of the capitalist post-war order, with US imperialist aggression emerging in its most naked form. Behind the slogan of “national security,” Trump seeks to seize control, by military means if necessary, of the resources and infrastructure necessary for waging world war against China. 

This includes the vast oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, whose rights belong to the United States, Mexico and Cuba, and where half of US petroleum and natural gas processing is located. 

An editorial Wednesday in the Mexican daily La Jornada, speaking for more politically conscious sections of the Mexican ruling class aligned with Sheinbaum, sounded the alarm: 

Although the United States no longer possesses the diplomatic, political, financial and military resources to shape the world according to its interests, it does have the means to cause enormous damage. In this sense, hostile and mendacious rhetoric such as it is now using against Mexico incites hatred and puts at risk the physical integrity and freedoms of millions of people. Therefore, the boastfulness with which he appeases the paranoia of his electorate becomes a risk factor inside and outside US borders and it will be necessary to respond to it with as much intelligence as firmness.

This is a nervous acknowledgement that the Mexican bourgeoisie really holds no illusions about US imperialism rebuilding Mexico and Central America for economic development as a means of tackling the sources of migration, which Sheinbaum and her predecessor constantly say they are working toward with Washington. 

La Jornada also subtly criticizes the feckless and giggly response by Sheinbaum to Trump’s threats, while making clear that the circles close to her do not really see them as a joke. Instead, her government’s “wisdom” is to prevent the Mexican working class from becoming conscious of the threats posed by the current shift to the right in capitalist politics globally and to cover up her administration’s own adaptation to it.

The reaction to Trump sums up the organic inability of the Mexican bourgeoisie to provide any progressive or democratic response to the eruption of US imperialism. The claim that Trump is acting to “appease the paranoias of his electorate” is entirely false and expresses the deepest held hostility and fear of the Mexican capitalists toward the potential for a united struggle of US, Mexican and Canadian workers that would sweep the capitalists from power. 

American workers who voted for Trump did not vote for devastating the integrated Mexican and American economies with tariffs, bombing Mexican towns and cities on the pretext of combating cartels or carrying out militarized, mass raids and deportations against their fellow immigrant workers. These policies would only serve to dramatically reduce the socioeconomic position of native-born workers in the United States.

Instead, the vast majority who voted for Trump did so due to frustration over economic issues, particularly inflation and mass layoffs, and many believed Trump’s demagogic claims to oppose the US-NATO war against Russia. 

The main political role played by AMLO and Sheinbaum’s Morena party has been to suppress the class struggle against extreme levels of capitalist exploitation. In order to fight Trump and US imperialism, workers in Mexico must break free politically from Morena and all pro-capitalist and nationalist tendencies and turn to their class brothers and sisters in the United States, Canada and beyond on the basis of an internationally unified struggle for socialism.