Sheinbaum would not say it.

MEXICO CITY — President Claudia Sheinbaum answered Donald Trump on Thursday morning without quite answering him. At the United Nations on Tuesday he had called Mexico the epicenter of cartel violence and said a 2,000-mile border with territory he described as cartel-controlled was unacceptable. She told her morning conference she could say it is very hard to live next to a country with so much illicit drug use, or next to a country that produces so many guns. Then she said she would not say it.

The room laughed. She said she would not say it because Mexico has a good relationship with President Trump and with the government of the United States, and because the two sides are working in a coordinated way. She also said the American lines belong to a campaign. The midterm is in November. Newspapers in Mexico led with the line. Reforma, El Financiero, and La Jornada all put it on the front.

I am not going to say it, because we have a good relationship with President Trump.

She said intentional homicides are down 50 percent, and that a link to a criminal group would have made those results impossible. She added that she does not intend to argue with Trump all the time. On the United Nations itself she was plainer: the institution is overwhelmed by Palestine, the war in Iraq, the blockade of Cuba, and what happened to Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. A reform, she said, would be a good thing.