MEXICO CITY – Mexico must maneuver carefully now that Donald Trump has secured his return to the US presidency, but Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum still has room to negotiate and mitigate impacts on trade, migration and security.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric, including 200 percent tariffs on cars coming from Mexico, mass deportations and US military action against drug cartels, puts Sheinbaum in a difficult position. An initial deterioration in the relationship between the two countries – and a blow to the Mexican peso – is likely.
But in the longer term, analysts say, Mexico has some leverage, particularly on migration, that could help dilute some of Trump’s promises in areas such as trade and security.
“What we know about Trump is that he is transactional,” said Mariana Campero, senior associate with the CSIS Americas Program.
Campero said Sheinbaum — who took office last month — will be best served by taking a page from the playbook of her mentor and predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador found a way to work with Trump in his first term, by providing greater enforcement on migration and steering relations away from US economic policy options that would have been most damaging to Mexico.
“Sheinbaum could say ‘OK, Mexico can take back (deported) Mexican citizens, but you’re not going to impose the tariffs,’” Campero added.
Mexico could also lean on American companies, many of which benefit greatly from the USMCA, to lobby against large tariff increases. The current USMCA was negotiated under Trump and ended up far less damaging to Mexico than Mexican officials had originally feared.
The USMCA is due for review in 2026 and these discussions will be a key moment in the relationship between Sheinbaum and Trump. Mexico will likely start preparing immediately with “a better defined and more aggressive strategy” to identify politicians who might be good at communicating with Trump, said Antonio Ocaranza, who was a spokesman under former President Ernesto Zedillo.
Sheinbaum’s appointment of Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard — a former head of foreign relations under Lopez Obrador who has personal experience dealing with Trump — was seen as a powerful signal that Mexico is preparing with its best political firepower for the USMCA review, analysts said.
Another area of potential tension is China.
Despite US pressure, Mexico has allowed Chinese companies to expand their presence in recent years and is considering an incentive program open to companies from any country interested in investing in Mexico.
Trump, meanwhile, has promised a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and a minimum 10% levy on all other imports.
Mexico’s incentive program to attract investment — which does not exclude China — could put the country on a collision course with the Trump administration.
“This is not good news in terms of what’s coming up for the bilateral relationship,” said Lila Abed, director of the Washington-based Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, adding that Mexico’s trade with China could be a major sticking point in the USMCA review.
When it comes to drugs and security, Mexico will also expect a rough ride.
The Sheinbaum administration is keenly aware that stemming the flow of fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year, will be high on the agenda between the two leaders, analysts said. Sheinbaum will need to be willing to cooperate, and show results, to gain the political capital needed to fend off Trump’s more radical ideas — like U.S. military intervention against Mexican cartels.
Any such breach would risk enormous damage to relations between the interdependent economies but cannot be ignored, according to Abed.
“I think it’s a real option that’s on the table,” she said. Reuters
