Mexico goes out of its way when President Trump threatens high tariffs on exports. But as the deadline approaches, Mexican leaders hope they have found a formula to avoid tariffs by working to appease Mr. Trump in several ways.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, focusing on Mr. Trump’s complaints about immigration and illegal drugs, is deploying 10,000 soldiers to stop immigrants from reaching the United States and to places far away from the border in efforts to undermine immigrants’ caravans and buses.
Ms. Sheinbaum will also hand over to dozens of U.S. cartel agents and receive intelligence from CIA drone flights to capture others. With her ex breaking, she mistakenly claimed that Mexico did not produce fentanyl and she was releasing the repression, resulting in the drug’s recorded seizures.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s leaders are imposing tariffs and restrictions on a wide variety of Chinese imports, trying to convince Mr. Trump that Mexico and its low-cost industrial base can become a strategic partner for China’s economic trends.
Mr. Trump still announced a 25% tariff on Tuesday. But Mexico’s financial markets remain calm, reflecting Ms. Sinbaum’s expectation that a way to find a deal can be reached.
“She was able to manage this crisis better than any other leader,” said a scholar specializing in North American trade in the Wilson Center, a Washington Research Group, said.
Mr. Trump praised Ms. Sheinbaum as a “wonderful woman” after talking to her in February.
Ms. Sheinbaum relocated her reconciliation public to appease Mr. Trump, such as deploying troops, conducting greater security cooperation behind the scenes, and launching a modest counterattack against Mr. Trump to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
It wasn’t an easy balancing act for Ms. Sheinbaum, although her recognition rate soared to 80%. Skeptics about Mr. Trump’s xenophobic politics are deeply integrated within Mexican society and Morena, Ms. Sheinbaum’s party, which blends nationalism and leftist ideals.
After decades of integration, Mexico has relied on trade with the United States more than any other major economy. Economists warn that even short-term imposed tariffs can be hit.
Mr. Trump also threatened a 25% tariff on global steel and aluminum imports, which would also affect Mexico. The Trump administration is developing other “reciprocal” tariffs designed to offset trade restrictions and comply with import responsibilities undertaken by other countries.
As companies suspend plans, uncertainty over tariffs has put Mexico’s economic weight. The central bank cut its growth forecast to 0.6% from 1.2% this year.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump’s repeated threats and subsequent pullbacks to these threats have cultivated hopes of easing tensions. Initially, he vowed to impose tariffs on the first day of his tenure, but then went back twice.
Mexican negotiators met with U.S. Trade Representative’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer in Washington to reach a final deal.
These are three areas where Mexico mobilizes to align with the Trump administration’s priorities.
Contain migration
Mexico promised to send 10,000 National Guard members to the U.S. border when Mexico stopped 30 days of tariffs in early February.
For months, Mexico has removed the immigration caravan before reaching the border city and expanding a shady plan that transports thousands of immigrants to deep inside Mexico.
Mexico detained about 475,000 immigrants in the last quarter of 2024, more than double the detentions in the first nine months of this year, according to government data.
The border was already very quiet before Mr. Trump took office in January, reflecting Mexico’s law enforcement measures and Biden administration’s asylum restrictions.
New efforts by the Trump administration to stifle immigration flows together with Mexican forces have made it more difficult for immigrants to enter the United States.
The immigration cross has dropped to an unthinkable level at a time. At some point in February, Americans on the Mexican border encountered only 200 immigrants in one day, the lowest number in recent history.
If the Johnson administration ends, the annual trend of the trend will drop to nearly 60 years ago the concerns of border patrols.
Mexico is trying to crack down on cartels that produce illegal narcotics, especially fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that Mr. Trump is considered the leading cause of overdose death in the United States.
Mexican officials have marked past policies in past policies, and Mexican officials regularly announced new seizures of fentanyl pills in recent weeks when the cartel managed to produce fentanyl from authorities’ intervention.
The moves include the capture of six kilograms of fentanyl last week at the new International Airport in Mexico City, where the agency was sent to New Jersey. 18 kg of fentanyl was found in a passenger bus in the northwestern border country of Sonora.
In December, shortly after Mr. Trump began threatening Mexico with tariffs, authorities were hit with a huge seizure of 800 kilograms of fentanyl in Sinaloa, the largest synthetic opioid in Mexico.
In February, Mexican authorities in Puerto Valata also arrested two U.S. citizens who faced a warrant for trafficking in fentanyl. Both were extraditioned to Oklahoma.
Mexico then sent nearly 30 cartel agents to the United States on Thursday, one of the largest such handovers in drug war history.
These moves are designed to avoid U.S. tariffs and military intervention.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s mentor and former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador restricted anti-drug cooperation with the United States. Ms. Sheinbaum seems to be taking a different approach.
Mexican officials, for example, have been welcoming the CIA intelligence, which has stepped up secret unmanned flights to cross Mexico to find the fentanyl lab. The Mexican Defense Secretary said in late February that U.S. drones have been used to track Sinaloa’s top cartel figures.
Greater law enforcement may help reduce the overdose deaths that have fallen in the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agreement to seek tariffs with Mexican negotiators could be a promising sign, with deaths down about 24% compared to the previous year.
Oppose China
Trade between China and Mexico has been surging, raising concerns that China can use its foothold in Mexico to gain greater access to the U.S. market. A year ago, transportation from China to Mexico was one of the fastest growing trade routes in the world.
But now, Mexico is overhauling its relations with China, the second largest trading partner. A few days after Mr. Trump first vowed to impose tariffs, authorities raided a large number of stores in the heart of Mexico’s city to sell counterfeit Chinese goods.
Mexico then imposed a 35% tariff on Chinese clothing imports, while also targeting Chinese online retailers, like Shein and Temu, through imposing a 19% tariff on goods imported from express companies from China.
Nevertheless, Mexico could still make the Trump administration more comfortable by curbing imports of products such as semiconductors or cars, which soon came into imports in key U.S. automakers.
