Sheinbaum

Nov. 18 (UPI) — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday rebuffed the idea of the U.S. military intervening within her country’s borders to combat drug trafficking despite recent remarks from President Donald Trump.

Sheinbaum made the comments during a press conference Tuesday as the Trump administration pursues its increasingly militarized approach to drug trafficking.

Sheinbaum said Trump had offered during multiple phone conversations to send troops to Mexico to help authorities combat criminal groups. While Sheinbaum said she was willing to share information and work with the United States, she would not accept a foreign government intervening in her country.

“We don’t want intervention from any foreign government,” said Sheinbaum in Spanish. She noted that Mexico lost half its territory the last time the United States had a military presence in her country, a reference to the U.S.-Mexico war of the 19th century.

She added she was open to “collaboration and coordination without subordination” to the United States and had communicated the same message to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The Trump administration has launched a series of strikes targeting boats allegedly carrying drugs across the Pacific to the United States. Military officials have justified the strikes as legally permissible after the U.S. government designated drug traffickers as “terrorist organizations.”

Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump said the strikes had significantly reduced drug trafficking across waterways and prevented U.S. citizens from fatal overdoses. When asked if he was open to military strikes against Mexico, Trump indicated he was open to the idea, citing “big problems” in Mexico City.

“So let me just put it this way, I am not happy with Mexico,” he said.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is barred from Peru after her government granted asylum to Peruvian ex-premier.

Peru has declared Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum a “persona non grata” who is unable to enter the country, days after severing ties with Mexico amid an escalating diplomatic dispute.

Peru’s Congress voted 63 to 34 on Thursday in favour of symbolically barring Sheinbaum from the country after her government granted asylum to former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chavez, after she fled to the Mexican embassy in Peru’s capital Lima.

The designation of “persona non grata” is typically reserved for foreign diplomats and compels them to leave a host country, and is seen as a rebuke to their government.

President of Peru’s Congress Fernando Rospigliosi said the move was a show of support for the government and its decision to break off relations with Mexico, according to Mexico’s El Pais newspaper.

During a debate on Thursday, Ernesto Bustamante, an MP who sits on Peru’s Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, also accused Sheinbaum of having ties to drug traffickers.

“We cannot allow someone like that, who is in cahoots with drug traffickers and who distracts her people from the real problems they should be addressing, to get involved in Peruvian affairs,” Bustamante said, according to El Pais.

Chavez, who is on trial for her participation in an alleged 2022 coup attempt, earlier this week fled to the Mexican embassy in Lima, where she was granted political asylum.

Peru’s Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela called the decision by Mexico City an “unfriendly act” that “interfered in the internal affairs of Peru”.

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has maintained that it was acting in accordance with international law, and the move in “no way constitutes an intervention in Peru’s internal affairs”.

Lima has yet to offer safe passage for Chavez to leave the embassy and travel to Mexico.

Chavez, a former culture minister, briefly served as prime minister to President Pedro Castillo from late November to December 2022.

Charges against the former minister stem from an attempt by President Castillo in December 2022 to dissolve the Peruvian Congress before he was quickly impeached and arrested.

Chavez, who faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty, has denied involvement in the scheme. She was detained from June 2023 until September of this year, and then released on bail while facing trial.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she has filed a complaint against the man seen in video groping her on a Mexico City street.

“If I don’t report it — besides the fact that it is a crime — then what position are all Mexican women left in?” she asked during a Wednesday press conference.

“If this can happen to the president, what can happen to all the young women in our country?”

Video of the Tuesday incident circulating online shows Sheinbaum speaking to people on a crowded Mexico City street. As she turns to speak with people to her right, a man comes up from behind her left side, puts his arm around her right shoulder and appears to lean in to try to kiss the president on the cheek.

As another man, whom Sheinbaum identified as Juan Jose of her staff, approaches, the suspect’s left hand is seen sliding up the president’s side and appears to grope her before Jose intervenes and moves him away.

Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday that the man has been arrested.

“I had to go to the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office because it’s a local offense. I filed the complaint, and it turns out this same person later went on to harass other women on the street,” she said.

“First of all, this is something that should never happen in our country. I’m not saying this as the president, but as a woman, and on behalf of all Mexican women: it should not happen.”

She explained they decided to walk from the National Palace to the Ministry of Public Education on Tuesday because the drive would have taken 20 minutes, when by foot it would only take them a quarter of the time.

Many people greeted them en route without problems, until “this totally drunk person approached,” she said.

“That’s when I experienced this incident of harassment. At that moment, I was actually talking with other people, so I didn’t realize right away what was happening,” she said, adding it was only after watching the video that she realized she had been accosted.

“I decided to file a complaint because this is something I experienced as a woman, and it’s something women across our country experience. I’ve lived through this before, back when I wasn’t president, when I was a student, when I was young,” she said.

“Our personal space — no one has the right to violate it,” she continued. “No one. No one should violate our personal space. No man has the right to do so. The only way that’s acceptable is with a woman’s consent.”

The type of harassment the president was the victim of is not a crime in all states, she said, adding that she has called for a review to see where it is a criminal offense.

They are also launching a campaign to encourage women to be respected “in every sense” and to promote that harassment is a crime.

Sheinbaum calls for nationwide review of sexual harassment laws, as attack shines light on Mexico’s poor record on women’s safety.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called for sexual harassment to be made a crime nationwide after being groped on the street while greeting supporters near the presidential palace in Mexico City.

Sheinbaum, 63, said on Wednesday that she had pressed charges against the man and would review nationwide legislation on sexual harassment following the attack by a drunk man who put his arm around her shoulder, and with the other hand touched her hip and chest, while attempting to kiss her neck.

Mexico’s first woman president removed the man’s hands before a member of her staff stepped between them. The president’s security detail did not appear to be nearby at the moment of the attack, which was caught on camera.

The man was later arrested.

“My thinking is: If I don’t file a complaint, what becomes of other Mexican women? If this happens to the president, what will happen to all the women in our country?” Sheinbaum told her regular morning news conference on Wednesday.

In a post on social media, the president said the attack was “something that many women experience in the country and in the world”.

Presenté una denuncia por el episodio de acoso que viví ayer en la Ciudad de México. Debe quedar claro que, más allá de ser presidenta, esto es algo que viven muchas mujeres en el país y en el mundo; nadie puede vulnerar nuestro cuerpo y espacio personal.

Revisaremos la… pic.twitter.com/jcs6FweI6q

— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) November 5, 2025

Translation: I filed a complaint for the harassment episode that I experienced yesterday in Mexico City. It must be clear that, beyond being president, this is something that many women experience in the country and in the world; no one can violate our body and personal space. We will review the legislation so that this crime is punishable in all 32 states.

Sheinbaum explained that the incident occurred when she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk the route in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.

She also called on states across Mexico to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a “loud and clear, no, women’s personal space must not be violated”.

Mexico’s 32 states and Mexico City, which is a federal entity, all have their own criminal codes, and not all states consider sexual harassment a crime.

“It should be a criminal offence, and we are going to launch a campaign,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she had suffered similar attacks in her youth.

The incident has put the focus on Mexico’s troubling record on women’s safety, with sexual harassment commonplace and rights groups warning of a femicide crisis, and the United Nations reporting that an average of 10 women are murdered every day in the country.

About 70 percent of Mexican women aged 15 and over will also experience at least one incident of sexual harassment in their lives, according to the UN.

The attack also focused criticism on Sheinbaum’s security detail and on her insistence on maintaining a degree of intimacy with the public, despite Mexican politicians regularly being a target of cartel violence.

But Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or change how she interacts with people following the incident.

At nationwide rallies in September to mark her first year in power, the president allowed supporters to embrace her and take selfies.