International roundup

Por Agencies
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Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s executive order moving toward designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would only impact Mexico if there’s close coordination between the two governments.

She said that Mexico would defend its sovereignty and independence while seeking coordination with the U.S. in the wake of the order signed Monday.

“We all want to fight the drug cartels,” Sheinbaum said at her daily press briefing. The U.S. “in their territory, us in our territory.”

Trump’s order highlighted Mexican drug cartels and other Latin American criminal groups like Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). 

The order says they “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”

The order did not list any Mexican cartels by name but said Cabinet secretaries would recommend groups for designation as terrorist organizations in the next 14 days. 

It was among a slew of executive orders Trump signed Monday to kick off his administration, several of which focus on securing the southern border.

“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” the order reads.

It was unclear what the impact could be for fighting the cartels, but there was concern it could be another way to make it more difficult for people from the countries where those groups operate to access the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence Monday that he wants to have the Panama Canal back under U.S. control fed nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.S. military intervention.

“American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump said Monday.

In the streets of the capital, some Panamanians saw Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded forcefully Monday, as he did after Trump’s initial statement last month that the U.S. should consider repossessing the canal, saying the canal belongs to his country of 4 million and will remain Panama’s territory.

Luis Barrera, a 52-year-old cab driver, said Panama had fought hard to get the canal back and has expanded it since taking control.

“I really feel uncomfortable because it’s like when you’re big and you take a candy from a little kid,” Barrera said.

At a rally in Phoenix in December, Trump said he might try to get the canal back after it was “foolishly” ceded to Panama. 

He complained that shippers were overcharged and that China had taken control of the key shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The canal’s administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, said this month that China is not in control of the canal and that all nations are treated equally under a neutrality treaty.

He said Chinese companies operating in the ports on either end of the canal were part of a Hong Kong consortium that won a bidding process in 1997. 

He added that U.S. and Taiwanese companies operate other ports along the canal as well.

Earlier this month, Trump wouldn’t rule out using military force to take it back.

The United States built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

The canal is a point of pride for Panamanians. On Dec. 31, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the handover, and days later they commemorated the deaths of 21 Panamanians who died at the hands of the U.S. military decades earlier.

On Jan. 9, 1964, students protested in the then-U.S. controlled canal zone over not being allowed to fly Panama’s flag at a secondary school there. 

Canada’s outgoing prime minister and the leader of the country’s oil rich province of Alberta are both confident Canada can avoid the 25% tariffs President Donald Trump says he will impose on Feb. 1.

Justin Trudeau and Danielle Smith will argue that Canada is the energy super power that has the oil and critical minerals that America needs to feed what Trump vows will be a booming U.S. economy.

But Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, the manufacturing hub of Canada, said a trade war is 100% coming.

Trump “declared an economic war on Canada,” Ford said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And we are going to use every tool in our tool box to defend our economy.”

Trudeau said Canada will retaliate if needed but noted Canada has been here before during the first Trump presidency when they successfully renegotiated the free trade deal.

Ford said as soon as Trump applies tariffs he will instruct Ontario’s liquor control board to pull all American-made alcohol from shelves.

“We are the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world. And I’m going to encourage all the premiers to do the exact same,” Ford said, adding there will be a dollar-for-dollar tariff retaliation on American goods entering Canada.

“We are going to target Republican held areas as well. They are going to feel the pain. Canadians are going to feel the pain, but Americans will feel the pain as well,” he said. “A message to the countries around the world: if he wants to use Canada as an example you are up next. He’s coming after you as well.”

Trump pledged in his inaugural address that tariffs would be coming in a speech in which he promised a golden era for America. 

He later said Canada and Mexico could be hit with the tariffs as soon as Feb. 1, though he signed an executive order requesting a report coordinated by the Secretary of Commerce by April. 1.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada. Despite Trump’s claim that the U.S doesn’t need Canada, nearly a quarter of the oil America consumes per day comes from Canada. America’s northern neighbor also has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S.

Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.

“Trump wants to usher in a golden age for the U.S,” Trudeau said at a Cabinet retreat in Quebec called to deal with Trump’s threats.

“If the American economy is going to see the boom that Donald Trump is predicting they are going to need more energy, more steel and aluminum, more critical minerals, more of the things that Canada sells to the United States every single day.”