The ads broadcast on Mexican television, during soccer games and prime time viewing hours, show Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, blaming migrants for violent crime and drug trafficking in the United States as she delivers a blunt warning: “We will hunt you down.”
For Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who has yielded to one demand after another from President Trump in a bid to avert or lessen tariffs, Ms. Noem’s appearances on Mexico’s television screens amount to a line in the sand.
Ms. Sheinbaum hit back by calling Ms. Noem’s ads “discriminatory” on Monday and asking Mexican broadcasters to remove them. She went further on Tuesday, saying she will ask Mexico’s Congress to approve a measure to ban such ads from ever appearing again in Mexico.
“We are going to change the law to prohibit foreign governments from carrying out political and ideological propaganda in our country,” Ms. Sheinbaum said during her daily news conference.
The pushback from Ms. Sheinbaum points to the limits to what her government is willing to accept from the Trump administration as she responds to Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which are already taking a toll on Mexico’s export-driven economy, and his threats to take unilateral military action within Mexico against drug cartels.
Mexico barred foreign propaganda for years, but the law doing so was repealed in 2014 during a previous administration. “It shouldn’t have been removed,” Ms. Sheinbaum said this week. “We believe that our sovereignty and respect for Mexico warrant reinstating it into the law.”
The ads that Ms. Sheinbaum is now seeking to ban are part of a multimillion-dollar campaign by the Department of Homeland Security aimed at persuading migrants to avoid trying to cross illegally into the United States.
Another ad slated to broadcast in the United States and internationally shows Ms. Noem calling undocumented immigrants rapists, murderers and child molesters, and telling them to self-deport.
The ad campaigns form part of a broader push that Mr. Trump put into motion at the start of his new term to curb migration to the United States and carry out mass deportations of migrants living in the country. Ms. Noem has emerged as a public face of this effort, drawing attention for appearing in a previous video at a prison where deportees are being held in El Salvador while wearing a $50,000 watch.
Focusing on Mr. Trump’s complaints about migration and illicit drugs, Ms. Sheinbaum has already deployed 10,000 troops to prevent migrants from reaching the border. Her government has also handed over to the U.S. dozens of cartel operatives and accepted intelligence from C.I.A. drone flights to track down others.
Going further, Mexico’s government is making record seizures of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, much of it manufactured in Mexico, that is responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the United States. Mexico is also imposing its own tariffs on imports from China.
With Mexico’s economy exceptionally dependent on trade with the United States, some in the country are questioning whether Mr. Sheinbaum is going too far in her response to the ads.
Fernando Dworak, a political analyst based in Mexico City, called her reaction “disproportionate” and argued it was a part of a strategy that has sought to solidify support for Ms. Sheinbaum among her base of supporters.
“We can question or criticize U.S. migration policies but to suggest that this campaign is an interventionist act is something else,” Mr. Dworak said.
But he also acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Mexican exports, and Ms. Sheinbaum’s efforts to stir patriotic sentiment in response to such measures, have lifted the Mexican president’s political fortunes.
“It sells to wrap yourself in a flag, to exacerbate nationalistic sentiments, and this has worked really well for her,” Mr. Dworak said.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s approval ratings surpassed 80 percent in March, according to a nationwide poll by El Financiero, a financial newspaper. Her support has been rising, as her nonconfrontational approach to dealing with Mr. Trump allowed Mexico to avoid getting hit with even heavier tariffs than the ones the United States had already imposed.
But at the same time, Ms. Sheinbaum has made it clear that she opposes calls by Mr. Trump and his Republican allies to take unilateral military action against drug cartel operations within Mexico’s territory. She has repeatedly used versions of the phrase “coordination, yes; submission, never,” while insisting that Mexico is not a colony of any country.
Ms. Sheinbaum has also sought to reassure her own citizens who may be facing expulsion from the United States, where natives of Mexico account for the largest number of undocumented immigrants, but not a majority of them.
An initiative called “Mexico Embraces You” involves plans for reception centers along the border, replete with massive tents and mobile kitchens operated by the armed forces, to ease the re-entry of migrants into Mexican society.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
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