President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he has struck key immigration concessions from Mexico’s president, who he said has agreed to ramp up the deployment of personnel and resources meant to deter illegal drug and migrant crossings into the U.S.
The policy change is aimed at “closing our Southern Border” and “stopping the massive drug flow into the United States,” according to Trump, who described his call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as “wonderful” and “productive.” Those sentiments were echoed by Sheinbaum in a post on X. “I had an excellent conversation with President Donald Trump. We discussed Mexico’s strategy on the migration phenomenon and I shared that caravans are not arriving at the northern border because they are being taken care of in Mexico,” she wrote after Trump’s announcement on Truth Social.
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Trump went further, saying the change indicates Mexico has “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.” He followed up with a second post: “Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA.”
BREAKING: President Trump has spoken with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum who has agreed to “stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”
Nature is healing. pic.twitter.com/50ctd5rPAm
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 28, 2024
Mexican cartels are responsible for a significant portion of fentanyl entering the U.S., according to the Treasury Department. The powerful anesthetic has become the go-to filler compound for a host of America’s most popular illicit drugs, especially cocaine to heroin. A recent study from Yale University estimates that 83,000 Americans died in 2022 as a result of intentional or accidental exposure to the deadly drug.
President-elect Trump vowed to launch a public awareness campaign highlighting the drug’s insidious entrance into America’s narcotics market. “I will be working on a large scale United States Advertising Campaign, explaining how bad Fentanyl is for people to use – Millions of lives being so needlessly destroyed,” Trump wrote, ABC News reported. “By the time the Campaign is over, everyone will know how really bad the horror of this Drug is.”
At a follow-up press conference, Sheinbaum appeared to walk back some of the conditions announced by Trump, including Mexico’s culpability in drug and human trafficking. “President Trump, it is not with threats nor with tariffs that migration and drug consumption in the U.S. will be dealt with,” she said while reading a letter she sent to Trump. “These great challenges require cooperation and mutual understanding… We don’t make guns, we don’t consume synthetic drugs. Those killed by crime to meet the demand for drugs in your country are unfortunately our responsibility.”
In addition to the high cost of goods, a porous southern border was top of mind for Americans this election year. President-elect Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his strategy to define Vice President Kamala Harris — who at one point was the nation’s border czar — as complicit in the wave of illegal crossings battering American cities for the past three years. Post-election polling shows voters giving the Republican high remarks as he prepares to transition into the White House for the second time.
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