{"id":17336,"date":"2025-06-26T21:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T21:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17336\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T21:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T21:38:17","slug":"mexicos-president-slams-sanctions-on-mexican-banks-by-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17336\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico’s president slams sanctions on Mexican banks by Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sharply Thursday to U.S. government sanctions to block transfers from three Mexican financial institutions, saying Washington hasn\u2019t shown evidence of its allegations of money laundering.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Mexico\u2019s banking authority announced that it was temporarily taking over management of two of the institutions, CIBanco and Intercam Banco, to protect creditors.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Treasury Department announced the sanctions Wednesday on the two banks, as well as on the brokerage Vector Casa de Bolsa, alleging that they had facilitated millions of dollars in money transfers for Mexican drug cartels. <\/p>\n

Sheinbaum said during her morning news briefing Thursday that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had showed no evidence proving that the institutions carried out any money laundering, despite repeated requests for such evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Treasury Department hasn\u2019t provided a single piece of evidence to show that any money laundering was taking place,\u201d she said. \u201cWe aren\u2019t going to cover for anyone, there isn\u2019t impunity here. They have to be able to demonstrate that there was actually money laundering, not with words, but with strong evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The accused banks also fired back on the orders, rejecting the allegations and similarly citing a lack of evidence.<\/p>\n

Brokerage firm Vector said Wednesday night in a statement that it \u201ccategorically rejects any allegation that compromises its institutional integrity\u201d while Intercam said in a statement it denies being involved in any \u201cillegal practice.\u201d Vector is owned by entrepreneur Alfonso Romo<\/a>, who served as chief of staff to ex-President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador early in his presidency.<\/p>\n

Manuel Somoza, president of strategies of CIBanco, told local press that they only heard about the order the same time it was made public, and claimed that it wasn\u2019t a formal legal accusation, but rather an investigation. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur books are open,\u201d he said. \u201dRumors are clearly damaging, whether they\u2019re true or not. So, what we want is for (American authorities) to come and investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Treasury Department has said the order will go into effect in 21 days. The law officials cited states that they can take such actions without publicly presenting clear evidence if there are \u201creasonable grounds\u201d to believe that the institutions were involved in the money laundering connected to trafficking.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum said they were notified by American officials of the accusations ahead of the Wednesday announcement, and that Mexican financial regulators carried out their own investigations into the institutions. <\/p>\n

They found \u201cadministrative infractions,\u201d she said, but nothing close to the accusations being levied by Treasury officials.<\/p>\n

Despite that, Mexico\u2019s National Banking and Securities commission said they were temporarily taking over management of CIBanco and Intercam Banco \u201cin order to protect the interests of public savers and creditors.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the orders blocking transactions between the three institutions and American banks, the Trump administration alleged that the three companies facilitated millions of dollars in transfers with Chinese companies, which it said were used to buy chemicals to produce fentanyl. The Treasury Department said the institutions had facilitated transfers to U.S. banks, but officials would not name which U.S. institutions were implicated nor provide more details.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum countered that their own investigation simply showed that institutions had strong relationships with Chinese clients and banks, which she said was more of an indicator that the two countries share a robust trade relationship. China has been the main source of chemical precursors to produce fentanyl in Mexico, according to U.S. authorities. At the same time, the U.S. has increasingly sought to block growing Chinese influence and investment in Latin America. <\/p>\n

The leader also expressed frustration on Thursday morning, reminding Trump officials that Mexico is a sovereign nation and must be treated as an equal by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re no one\u2019s pi\u00f1ata,\u201d she said. \u201cMexico must be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sharply Thursday to U.S. government sanctions to block transfers…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[16823,16821,15581,16820,69,57,59,4228,1612,16822,2222,16819,50,80,16816,67,370,132,68,16818,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-17336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-alfonso-romo","10":"tag-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador","11":"tag-claudia-sheinbaum","12":"tag-corporate-crime","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-inc","16":"tag-indictments","17":"tag-latin-america","18":"tag-manuel-somoza","19":"tag-mexico","20":"tag-money-laundering","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-government","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-vector","29":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114751832269987617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}