11 de febrero 2025
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The "first round" of relations between Donald Trump's powerful presidency and Claudia Sheinbaum's government in Mexico ended with a one-month moratorium on the proposed 25% tariffs. During this time, the U.S. and Mexico will negotiate some of the most contentious issues in their relationship: migration, trade, security, and fentanyl trafficking.
"North America won, Mexico won, and the U.S. won—because imposing tariffs on Mexico would be like shooting yourself in the foot. Mexico is the U.S.'s top trading partner," said Mexican political analyst Dr. Rafael Fernández de Castro, an expert in U.S.-Mexico relations and director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
However, Fernández de Castro warned that the bilateral relationship will be very difficult: the renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) is still pending, and "it’s almost impossible to eliminate fentanyl smuggling because the drugs the Mexican cartels send are transported in small doses by American mules."
In an interview on the Esta Semana program by CONFIDENCIAL, the analyst acknowledged that, unlike the fiasco with Colombia's Gustavo Petro, the Mexican president has negotiated with Trump "with a cool head and a firm hand," but the U.S. president "feels like a Caesar, governing like a tyrant, without any kind of checks or balances."
Trade, Migration, and Fentanyl
What does this "first round" in the relations between President Trump and the Mexican government leave behind? The announcement of the 25% tariffs by the U.S. and Mexico's retaliation lasted less than 48 hours. Both sides agreed on a one-month moratorium to discuss the underlying issues. Was this negotiation foreseeable?
No, honestly, many of us thought the tariffs were a done deal. At the last minute on Monday morning, when Claudia Sheinbaum was supposed to announce Mexico’s retaliatory measures against the U.S., she didn’t go to her regular morning conference. Instead, she spoke with Trump, and they reached an agreement.
Trump was going to impose tariffs not because of trade issues, but because of migration and fentanyl drugs. The arrangement was that Mexico would send 10,000 National Guard members to the northern border to prevent undocumented migration and also to stop fentanyl trafficking.
This is a scenario Mexicans are familiar with, because the same thing happened in May 2019. Trump had gotten furious when he saw a group of Central American migrants breached his infamous wall, and he told López Obrador—"Either you stop this, or I’ll impose a 5% tariff for five months, eventually reaching 25%." López Obrador sent his foreign minister to Washington, and we reached a similar arrangement.
Claudia Sheinbaum said that she pointed out to Trump that the U.S. should also be paying attention to arms smuggling, because that gives drug traffickers enormous firepower. So, the danger was averted. Interestingly, Mexico paved the way for Canada to deal with its own issue.
Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum have both proclaimed victory in this round, but their accounts are somewhat different. Claudia Sheinbaum said that the U.S. committed to stopping the flow of weapons into Mexico, but Trump didn’t mention this in his version. Trump said that Mexican military forces will stop illegal migrants, while Sheinbaum only mentioned that they would control drug trafficking.
Of course, there are these discrepancies. Both are pulling water to their own mills, but I would say that North America won, Mexico won, and the U.S. won. Because imposing tariffs on Mexico would be like shooting yourself in the foot. Mexico is the U.S.'s top trading partner by far. Mexico is the country that has taken the best advantage of the U.S.-China trade dispute, which started almost ten years ago. Of the seven or eight percentage points that China’s exports to the U.S. have dropped, Mexico has gained the most ground.
There's also something that's not being said—China has been hit with a 10% tariff starting this week, and as of two days ago, small packages from China can no longer enter the U.S. This opens up more space for Mexico and Canada to integrate better. Right now, Trump is treating us like we’re the dog on a short leash, with just 30 days, but for now, we’re making the most of those 30 days.
Renegotiating the USMCA
The review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is scheduled for 2026, but all signs suggest it could be moved up. What would Trump be looking for in the renegotiation of this agreement, and what would Mexico and Canada seek?
This is really the core issue. Trump 2.0 has three major threats against Mexico, which he’s now carrying out. First, the mass deportation of Mexicans and everyone else. Second, a likely unilateral attack on a Mexican cartel, for which they’re trying to label Mexican cartels as international terrorist organizations. And the most significant issue is the review of the USMCA, the successor to NAFTA, as we used to say in English.
This is the most important issue for Mexico because the USMCA has been central to Mexico’s success in benefiting from the U.S.-China trade dispute. Mexico, rather than countries like Vietnam or Taiwan, has gained the most from this reshuffling of supply chains. Trump has said he wants to bring the review forward, and Mexico says, “Welcome, we’re ready.” The Ministry of Economy is already setting up what they call the “next door room,” which is the business organization that will accompany the negotiation. It’s crucial that this “next-door room” is different now—not just made up of international trade specialists, but also experts in migration and drug trafficking, because Trump mixes these issues. He uses tariffs for migration and drug-related purposes, so we need to have a truly national team.
Claudia Sheinbaum is very popular—she started with 71 approval points, and now she’s in the 80s. Her calm and firm response to Trump has been excellent, but now what’s really needed is to consolidate that, and I hope there’s a Mexican team that isn’t just Morena’s gang, because Morena is very exclusive. We need to consult with experts, and my business friends in Mexico tell me that Sheinbaum’s government is distinguishing itself from López Obrador’s by engaging in more consultation. Some members of her cabinet, like the foreign minister, like to consult with academics.
Trump’s challenge is still enormous. Trump is unnecessarily attacking Canada. He’s lumped them in with Mexico. Fentanyl doesn’t pass through Canada—it accounts for only 1% of the fentanyl consumed in the U.S. Almost no undocumented migrants pass through Canada like they do in Mexico. Their migration flows are completely different, yet he lumps them together and is literally bullying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is very weak, on his way out, and clearly there’s a problem between the two.
For me, Mexico and Ottawa’s choice is when Trump decides to bully them, and he doesn’t need national interests to justify it. He does it because he’s a man who feels like a Caesar, because he’s governing like a tyrant. He has no checks or balances because the American system of checks and balances is not working. The Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves because Trump is ruling like Caesar.
Returning to the renegotiation of the USMCA, where Trump’s interests will intertwine commercial issues like tariffs with migration and security concerns—would that change the nature of the agreement? In other words, would it shift from being strictly a trade agreement to one that includes clauses on security and migration as well?
No, because such an agreement would have to go back to the legislatures, and that would never happen. Over the past 30 years, since we negotiated NAFTA in the '90s, there has been a sort of tacit agreement between Mexican and U.S. diplomacy not to mix issues. If it’s trade, it’s trade; if it’s migration, it’s migration—to keep the relationship organized. Trump, clearly, mixes them, and efficiently so. And there’s Mexico.
I’m really concerned about the review, but what worries me most is that it’s almost impossible to stop the trafficking of fentanyl. The fentanyl is sent by the Mexican cartels, but it’s U.S. citizens who act as mules, the ones who bring it in. Because fentanyl, a bottle of pills, is lethal—it’s not like marijuana, or even cocaine—it comes in small doses. Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than heroin. So, it’s very hard to find those small doses.
With a backpack of fentanyl, you can devastate an entire town, because there’s also a huge public health issue in the U.S. And they don’t like to admit it. All they do is say that in this century, the U.S. has lost 1 million people to opioid overdoses, most of them from fentanyl. And for them, it’s easier to blame the supply coming from Mexico than to review their healthcare policy and the massive corruption of the pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.
Trump's accusation against Mexico
Trump’s accusation against Mexico The U.S. government made a very serious accusation against Mexico, claiming that the government has an alliance with the drug cartels, which is unprecedented. How do you assess the implications of this accusation and the Mexican response?
It hurt, and it hurt a lot. There are many people in Washington, not just Republicans but Democrats, who respect us and are very upset with Mexico, because in the first five years of López Obrador’s presidency, he denied that fentanyl was being produced in Mexico—he was turning a blind eye.
There’s a serious problem for Claudia here, because this frustration, this wound in the U.S. is now coming to the surface, and she can’t criticize the López Obrador government because that’s why she’s there. It’s a very difficult dance for her. What is clear, though, is that López Obrador’s “hugs, not bullets” strategy is over—there are a lot of bullets now.
Claudia Sheinbaum’s strong man in the cabinet is Omar García Harfuch, the Secretary of Public Security. He was her Security Secretary in Mexico City. He survived a serious assassination attempt—two of his bodyguards were killed—and he knows the kind of results the U.S. is expecting. He’s fighting hard, and with full support from President Sheinbaum to achieve those results.
But, again, it’s not easy because fentanyl is very difficult to deal with. And if there’s one terrible legacy from López Obrador, it’s “hugs, not bullets”—turning a blind eye. I wouldn’t say he’s an accomplice, but he’s ignored all the security messes over the past six years in Mexico.
The President of Mexico, indeed, called out the United States, telling them, "You have a public health problem, the guns are coming from the U.S. to Mexico, and on the other hand, there's the consumption of fentanyl." But Mexico’s solution is: we’re sending 10,000 soldiers to the border. What are these 10,000 soldiers going to do? You mentioned this already happened under López Obrador.
Aside from the 10,000 soldiers, there’s García Harfuch’s strategy of zero tolerance on fentanyl and cartels, but we’re behind—we were very lenient with them over the last six years. So, it’s not going to be easy. We’re against the clock.
The next four years will be very tough. Trump is against everyone. As they say, he's "flooding the shit zone," sorry to use that word, but that's the term used by Trump’s ideologue, Steve Bannon, and they’re attacking from all sides because they want to create chaos and confusion so that the Democrats, the press, and foreign countries can’t defend themselves.
Claudia Sheinbaum can’t be overconfident, and we need to do some very important internal work. Mexico really needs citizen security; in terms of migration, we need to make an enormous effort to regulate migration flows. The flows must be legal and safe.
The truth is that López Obrador didn’t help Biden’s administration until 2024, in the last year, when the child had already drowned. The U.S. border was practically open; almost everyone passed through. It’s estimated that around 5 million people passed over the past four years, most of them seeking asylum. That gives Trump ammunition, as it was a major topic in his campaign. And now, there’s a significant tightening at the border, along with an even greater opening on the migration front.
Right now, the issue is scaring the migrant community, saying, "We’re going to activate Guantanamo prison." It’s a terrible thing, the darkest prison where major abuses have been committed. They’re threatening to send 30,000 migrants there. What does a poor migrant, for example, have in common with an international terrorist? They’re terrifying them because what Trump’s dark mind, Stephen Miller—the number two in the White House and in charge of domestic policy—wants is to instill fear so people go back. So, if you’re part of a mixed family, meaning there’s one or two undocumented people at home, it's better to go back to avoid living in constant fear.
The schools are empty, the barbershops, the commerce areas where Latinos, especially undocumented individuals, gather across the U.S. are empty. There’s a lot of fear. They’ve used a huge social media campaign to affect the migrants. This has serious repercussions because Trump is opening the door to racism, and more and more crimes are being committed due to racism. But, over the last three or four days, two weeks after Trump 2.0 began, there are already many public protests across the U.S. denouncing that this man wants to govern like Caesar, but he is not Caesar.
Mexico is practically the front line of conflict in Latin America with the United States, given this imperial presidency of Donald Trump. What implications does this have for Latin America regarding how Claudia Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, might advance in negotiations with Donald Trump?
Fortunately, Mexico is not alone. The only surprise of Trump 2.0 is that, like a good Caesar, he has territorial interests, imperial ambitions. He's attacking Greenland, Canada, and claims he's going to make it the 51st state. He just came out with this crazy idea, with no preparation, of turning Gaza into a kind of Mar-a-Lago, a major tourist center in the Mediterranean. That dilutes the attacks on Mexico.
Aside from that, no one can deny that Claudia (Sheinbaum) has always kept a cool head and a firm hand when negotiating with Trump—she's done it very well. She’s learned something from López Obrador. AMLO might be very criticized, but he handled Trump well. He never got in the ring with him, always dodged him, sometimes confronted him, sometimes played with him, but he managed it very well.
So, it's great that she’s succeeding, because, unlike Petro, for example, who was very uncertain in his challenge with Trump and lost to him, in Mexico's case, it’s clear that there’s a president, someone with a cool head. What worries me, though, is that Mexico still doesn’t have a ready team in the United States. Claudia Sheinbaum has kept the same ambassador López Obrador had, and the president will need a strong team, an extraordinary representation in the U.S.
Mexico has the most important consular network of any country in the world. We have 53 consulates across the United States, and that is the armed wing of Mexican diplomacy. We have an army of consular diplomats, and it needs to be mobilized, because with Trump, we need to defend ourselves at the local and state levels. That’s where Mexico’s response must be to many of the abuses that our people will face in the United States.
This article was originally published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
