The escalation of the US campaign against the regime of Nicolás Maduro It has served Mexico to send a message of firmness without, at the same time, breaking the delicate balance with Washington. An extension of the forceful and cool-headed strategy with which the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has faced the attacks of Donald Trump. The focus of the Republican magnate is now very concentrated on increasing pressure on Venezuela, without even ruling out a military offensive. The president’s response has been to raise the diplomatic tone in defense of Venezuelan sovereignty, in turn sending an indirect signal of protection against the possibility of the attacks spreading to Mexico, something that Trump has used on more than one occasion as part of his strategy of permanent tension.

The conflict with Caracas is going through a particularly delicate moment, after the express interest shown by Washington on Venezuelan oiland the enormous military deployment that the United States maintains in the Caribbean, where it has attacked dozens of alleged drug boatswith a balance of more than 80 dead. What began three months ago as an ambitious operation against drug trafficking has already mutated into a direct attack against the finances of the Venezuelan Government and the threat of military intervention, with which Donald Trump has flirted on more than one occasion, does not seem like a chimera. In this context, Sheinbaum has taken a step forward, urging the United Nations to act to “avoid bloodshed” and even offering Mexican territory for a possible negotiation between the two parties.

The initiative of the Mexican president has already been echoed in the Republican ranks. Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar accused the Mexican government this Thursday of “supporting the dictatorships” of Cuba and Venezuela. Despite the raised tone, Sheinbaum insists that his position remains within the historical framework of Mexican diplomacy, based on respect for the sovereignty of third countries and foreign non-interference. In the purely bilateral relationship, the Mexican president has opted for a strategy that tries to combine firmness with prudence in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on different fronts: security, trade, migration.

The classification of the mexican posters as terrorist organizations and the recent designation of fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” are movements that open the door to a possible US military incursion into Mexico. The Sheinbaum Government’s response has been to increase arrests and drug seizures, as well as sending dozens of imprisoned drug trafficking mafia leaders to United States prisons. “The Mexican government has done everything possible to accommodate the reality of the new Trump. That is why what the White House is doing with Venezuela puts Mexico in a very uncomfortable situation,” says international relations researcher Carlos Bravo.

A recent document from the National Security Strategysigned personally by President Trump, explicitly dusts off an old doctrine from the late 19th century that justified US interventionism in the rest of the American continent. From there was born the unfortunate motto of Latin America, the American backyard, which materialized, for example, in direct intervention in Cuba at the end of the 19th century or support for coups d’état, such as that of Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973. “The last American presidents had held back, they tended to limit themselves in their speeches and actions. But now Trump is trying to make the pill swallow in the most bitter way possible, to show that they are the center of the world,” adds Colmex historian Lorenzo Meyer.

This unbridled discourse is, for the analysts consulted, the ideal justification for a forceful but measured response from Mexico. “Mexico’s foreign policy, by tradition and history, cannot validate these speeches. For this reason, President Sheinbaum has tactfully urged the action of the United Nations, although we all know that there are hardly going to be consequences when it comes to the interests of great powers,” adds Meyer. The Mexican president would be following, according to the historian, a diplomatic tradition that comes from the Mexican Revolution, when those principles of respect for sovereignty and rejection of interference were forged, precisely as a principle of self-defense against the expansionist policies of the United States.

Within these diplomatic balances, another old principle of international relations, which seems to still be in full force, pointed to a kind of tacit agreement between Mexico and the United States by which the southern neighbor could take positions contrary to the northern neighbor as long as it did not pose a serious problem. Researcher Bravo gives as an example Mexico’s support in the middle of the Cold War for Castro’s Cuba, the greatest enemy of the United States. With this movement, the PRI government of the time could display leftist credentials but without threatening the bilateral relationship. “Something similar,” he points out, “is happening now with Venezuela. The Morenista governments have been very aligned, or at least have shown respect and friendship, with very authoritarian left-wing governments, such as Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. This last movement allows President Sheinbaum to take a certain distance from the United States with hardly any consequences.”

Three years ago, Mexico hosted a negotiating table between Chavismo and the opposition, without very convincing results. “Maduro’s dictatorship is already far beyond negotiation. It is not going to happen. And at the same time, if Trump wants to fight with Mexico, he has other, much easier justifications than the Venezuelan issue,” adds Bravo, who maintains that “we are seeing something that seems like foreign policy but is actually internal policy projected outwards.”