Soberanía is non-negotiable. That’s what Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum repeats time and again, at her mañaneras, at speeches, at rallies, on television and in person. She says it, her government says it, her political party says it, her apparatus says it. The agents of the United States of America must never, ever set foot on Mexican soil in any operational capacity. The sovereignty of the nation comes first – even before the security of the nation, even before the nation’s own capacity to police itself, even before the safety and lives of its own citizens.
As Sheinbaum herself has noted, the first American intervención in Mexico cost the country half its territory. There have been plenty more since 1848, but none have resulted in further Mexican territorial losses and all of them were direct responses to the Mexican exportation of violence and insecurity into the US.
Observe the narratives of the Mexican left long enough, and you see the same themes emerge over and over: Mexico always the victim, Mexico always wronged. It’s a useful narrative that insulates the ruling elite and deflects attention from the fact that it that has served its nation exceptionally poorly for most of the past 200 years.
