Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum didn’t say this about US President Donald Trump

Tensions have been high between Mexico and the U.S. since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his second term by issuing executive orders on immigration, border security and tariffs on Mexico imports.

But some social media posts crediting  Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum with issuing a snarky quip in response to Trump’s frequent divisive commentary about immigrants are not factual . 

"I’m confused," read a quote attributed to Sheinbaum and shared in a Feb. 3 Instagram post. "I keep hearing everyone from America saying that my country is sending felons & (rapists) into their Country. We thought that was encouraged … considering that’s what they chose to be their president."

(Screenshot from Instagram post.)

The post and other posts like it were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

We found no evidence that the Mexican president said that. 

On Feb. 1, Trump imposed tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China. Also, the White House issued a statement linking the Mexican government to drug cartels, saying the two entities have "an intolerable alliance" that has created in Mexico "safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics."

Sheinbaum rejected the accusations.

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stated on February 17, 2025 in una publicación en Facebook

El congresista Adriano Espaillat muestra “La nueva bandera que están promoviendo para República Dominicana que se va a llamar 'DominicoHaiti'”.

"We categorically reject the White House's slander against the Mexican government of having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of intervention in our territory," she said in a Feb 1, X post.

She added, "If such an alliance exists anywhere, it is in the United States armories that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups, as demonstrated by the United States Department of Justice itself in January of this year."

But Sheimbaum did not call Trump a criminal, as these posts say.

Trump on Feb. 3 announced a 30-day pause on Canada’s and Mexico’s tariffs after the nations agreed on efforts to combat drug trafficking and to protect their common borders. 

PolitiFact’s review of Sheinbaum’s press conferences from Jan. 20 through Feb. 2, when the post was published, and we found no instances in which Sheinbaum said anything like this in Spanish or English. It also did not appear in any news reports.

But we did find a possible clue to l the fake quote’s source: The Instagram post with the quote includes a watermark with the TikTok username @thebourbonmamaluke. The user posted Jan. 30 the same image of Sheinbaum with the quote along with the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme song. The user’s bio says, "Awful sports takes, brutal sportsbetting picks, plus other random nonsense." 

We rate the claim that Sheinbaum made this statement calling Trump a criminal False.