Mexican President vows to pursue energy independence, cut reliance on US

Mexico City, Aug 19 (IANS) Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that her country is exploring ways to boost energy independence and reduce its reliance on the United States.

Speaking at her daily press conference on Monday, Sheinbaum said Mexico is relying heavily on "very cheap" natural gas from the United States and should move toward energy independence, Xinhua News Agency reported.

But she cautioned that the import contracts, some of which "last up to 20 years," are binding commitments that cannot be immediately broken.

She added that the state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos has formed a working group coordinated by the Mexican Petroleum Institute to explore less environmentally damaging options "to see how we can strengthen energy self-sufficiency."

Any final decisions will need "to be put to the public's consideration," Sheinbaum said, adding that alternative sources of methane, such as landfills and biomass, are also being studied to diversify national production.

Earlier on August 15, rebuffing US President Donald Trump's claim that "Mexico does what we tell them to do," Claudia Sheinbaum said, "

"In Mexico, the people govern."

"President Trump has his way of speaking, but as I said yesterday, the only one who rules in Mexico is the people -- plain and simple," Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference.

She also titled her post "In Mexico, the people govern" on social media X.

Trump made his remarks Thursday at a White House event marking the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act, citing Mexico's enforcement of anti-migration measures at its borders to boast of his success at stemming the flow of immigration.

Asked about US troop deployments in the southern Caribbean to combat drug cartels, Sheinbaum stressed that Mexico will always uphold sovereignty and self-determination while cooperating with Washington.

"Our stance is always self-determination for all Latin American and Caribbean nations," she said, adding that Mexico rejects interventionism and favours diplomacy and international institutions as means of resolving disputes.

--IANS

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