For the second time in lower than decade, Mexico is making ready to barter with President-elect Donald J. Trump, who’s threatening the neighboring nation with sky-high tariffs, mass deportations and navy strikes on cartels.
The stakes are big for Mexico’s 130 million folks. Amongst main economies, Mexico is exceptionally depending on america, sending about 80 p.c of its exports to the American market.
Mexico’s high negotiators are adopting an assertive stance to negotiating with Mr. Trump this time round. A few of them can draw from expertise coping with the primary Trump administration: Mexico’s populist president on the time, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, forged a warm relationship with Mr. Trump, and Mexico prevented steep tariffs whereas acceding to calls for to curb migration.
“We are going to discover a answer as a result of we now have structural benefits,” Marcelo Ebrard, the economic system minister, mentioned this month, itemizing components like higher financial interdependence between the 2 international locations and declines in fentanyl deaths and migration.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has set the tone of this method. Whereas Mexico’s authorities has been unable to satisfy with the incoming Trump administration, she has blended conciliatory phrases for Mr. Trump with rhetorical pushback and vows that Mexico may hit again with retaliatory tariffs of its personal.
“We coordinate, we collaborate, however we’ll by no means change into subordinated,” Ms. Sheinbaum mentioned in a speech this month.
On the similar time, Ms. Sheinbaum’s authorities has already mobilized to reply to a few of Mr. Trump’s issues, increasing migration deterrence efforts and growing seizures of illicit opioids.
The cornerstone of this technique is a wager that the brand new administration in Washington wants Mexico, and its fast-expanding, low-cost industrial base, if america hopes to counter its largest rival: China.
Listed below are 4 components informing Mexico’s preparations for coping with the brand new Trump administration.
Mexico is more and more necessary to the U.S. economic system.
Mexico’s financial relationship with america has modified significantly since Mr. Trump was final within the White Home, particularly on account of the coronavirus pandemic’s disruption of worldwide provide chains.
Mexico eclipsed China in 2023 as america’ high buying and selling associate in items, as producers shifted operations to Mexico to be nearer to the American market.
Commerce ties deepened even additional final yr, when Mexico displaced China to change into the top source of imports for america and the highest vacation spot for American food exports.
“It’s an unprecedented stage of interdependence,” mentioned Diego Marroquín Bitar, a scholar who focuses on North American commerce on the Wilson Middle, a Washington analysis group.
Mexico’s authorities is showcasing these commerce ties because it makes the case that imposing U.S. tariffs on Mexico may increase inflation and harm American shoppers.
However these deepened ties additionally depart Mexico with heightened vulnerabilities.
One could also be remittances. Mexicans working in america despatched residence $63 billion in 2023, twice as a lot as when Mr. Trump took workplace eight years in the past, and mass deportations may trigger that determine to plummet.
Proposals to tax remittances, together with a invoice sponsored by Vice President-elect JD Vance, are additionally gaining momentum.
Migration flows and fentanyl deaths are falling.
Whereas Mr. Trump has repeatedly raised alarms about migration from Mexico, unlawful crossings alongside the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level because the summer time of 2020. Solely about 46,000 folks crossed the border illegally in November, the bottom quantity underneath President Biden.
The Biden administration’s restrictions on asylum for migrants contributed to this decline. However so did insurance policies in Mexico, which has sought to dissuade migrants, largely from different Latin American international locations, from reaching the U.S. border.
Mexico has damaged up migrant caravans and expanded a shadowy busing program that has transported 1000’s of migrants from the nation’s northern border to websites deep in its south.
Simply within the final quarter of 2024, Mexico intensified this crackdown by detaining about 475,000 migrants, the authorities mentioned, greater than double the quantity held within the first 9 months of the yr. Most of those migrants are quickly released, permitting them to remain in Mexico; solely a small fraction are deported to their residence international locations.
One other concern that Mr. Trump has cited regularly is the impression of unlawful medicine, notably fentanyl, flowing throughout the border. After surging to horrifying ranges, overdose deaths from unlawful medicine are additionally falling. They had been down about 14.5 p.c within the 12 months that resulted in June 2024 from the identical interval a yr earlier.
Specialists say that expanded therapy, prevention and training efforts in america played a role on this decline. Whereas extra proof is required, U.S. efforts to crack down on chemical precursors from China and the Mexican cartels using these chemicals to make fentanyl additionally could also be limiting provides.
Ms. Sheinbaum has additionally begun focusing on the fentanyl commerce. Final month, Mexican safety forces captured 20 million doses of the drug within the nation’s largest artificial opioid seizure.
Cartel violence remains to be rising over huge areas.
Neither declines in border crossings or fentanyl overdoses may a lot make a distinction if Mr. Trump chooses to concentrate on the cartel bloodshed gripping massive components of Mexico as justification for imposing tariffs on its exports.
Clashes between rival cartel factions have lately turned the northwest state of Sinaloa right into a war zone. Brutal political assassinations have forged a pall over Guerrero in southwest Mexico.
Turf battles in Guanajuato, a middle for automobile manufacturing northwest of Mexico Metropolis, have been marked by one massacre after another in current weeks.
Throughout his previous term, and again whereas campaigning for his new time period, Mr. Trump raised the potential of taking navy motion in opposition to cartels as a approach of limiting their smuggling of illicit medicine into america. A possible designation of those teams as “terrorist organizations” may open the way in which for such strikes.
Mexico’s authorities has lengthy seen such a risk as an almost unthinkable violation of its sovereignty. However some former officers with earlier expertise negotiating with Mr. Trump warn that Mexico must take such threats critically.
Ms. Sheinbaum highlighted final week the willingness of Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s decide for secretary of state, to collaborate on curbing cartel actions.
“We take him at his phrase,” Ms. Sheinbaum mentioned of Mr. Rubio.
“Trump 2.0 goes to be a unique Trump,” mentioned Ildefonso Guajardo, a former economic system minister who negotiated with the Trump administration in 2017 and 2018. “His crew will likely be far much less balanced when it comes to attempting to make him conscious of the implications of some selections.”
And whereas fentanyl deaths are declining in america, the drug remains to be claiming tens of 1000’s of lives annually. The explosion of violence in Sinaloa highlights how the teams chargeable for the fentanyl commerce stay lively and nicely armed.
So is China’s financial profile in Mexico.
A current flood of imported Chinese cars into Mexico has elevated tensions over the inroads that China is making into key industries in North America.
Mexico, which has a $105 billion commerce deficit with China, moved shortly in current weeks to assuage issues that China may use its foothold in Mexico as a option to acquire higher entry to U.S. markets.
Mexico imposed tariffs seen as targeting on-line Chinese language retailers like Temu and Shein, then unveiled a brand new industrial coverage final week geared toward reducing imports from China whereas bolstering provide chains to america.
With such measures, Mexico’s authorities is looking for to drive residence its rivalry that america wants Mexico to confront the higher financial menace of China. However will that be sufficient for Mr. Trump?
If not, and if ties with Washington bitter considerably, Mexico nonetheless has a sort of “nuclear choice” involving strengthening its financial ties with China, according to Scott Morgenstern, a professor of political science on the College of Pittsburgh.
“Mexico may flip to Washington’s greatest financial rival at a time when Beijing is looking for to say extra affect throughout Latin America,” Mr. Morgenstern mentioned.
