Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was prepared to enforce retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. if the two countries had not been able to strike a deal to avoid tariffs on Mexican goods going into the U.S. The Associated Press reports that the country’s chief negotiator Marcelo Ebrard told a rally in Tijuana that Mexico had emerged from the high-stakes talks with its “dignity intact.”

“We take advantage of being here in Tijuana to say to the people of the United States once more that we do not harbor any intention nor will we harbor any intention to harm them,” the president said. “At the same time, we ask for their understanding because the migratory phenomenon doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from the material needs and the insecurity in the Central American countries and in marginalized sectors and regions of Mexico, where there are human beings who need to set out on a pilgrimage to mitigate their hunger and their poverty or to save their lives.”