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Mexico Managed to Stave Off Trump’s Tariffs. Now What?

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  • Post last modified:February 4, 2025

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To broad relief across her country, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico announced on Monday that she had forestalled a plan by the Trump administration to impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexican goods. Initially set to go into effect at the stroke of midnight, the tariffs have been delayed by a month, she said.

“We have this month to work, to convince each other that this is the best way forward,” Ms. Sheinbaum said at her regular morning news conference after speaking to President Trump. Suggesting that she might be able hold off the penalties altogether, she said she had told her American counterpart: “We are going to deliver results. Good results for your people, good results for the Mexican people.”

The announcement was seen as a victory for the Mexican government in dealing with Mr. Trump, who has set a new tone of aggression in the first weeks of his presidency. He has demanded that even some of the United States’ closest allies acquiesce to his demands or face consequences in the form of tariffs or perhaps even military force.

The deal, however, will force Mexico into a critical 30-day test during which it must not only continue its recent progress but also make still more headway on two of the country’s most enduring challenges: drug trafficking and migration.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mexico will post an additional 10,000 Mexican National Guardsmen on the border. In return, Ms. Sheinbaum said, the U.S. government will work to stop the flow of arms into Mexico.

While Mexico has spent the past year stepping up its immigration enforcement, which has already contributed to a drastic reduction in U.S. border crossings, the issue of drug trafficking is much more complicated. It will require Mexico to have “a very clear, very well-defined plan,” said Ildefonso Guajardo, a former economy minister who negotiated with the first Trump administration.

Mexico has been the source of almost all of the fentanyl seized by U.S. law enforcement in recent years, and the amount crossing the border has increased tenfold in the past five years. But federal data shows it is brought in not by migrants but by American citizens recruited by cartel organizations.

Waging a full war on the cartels would likely backfire and set off more waves of violence across Mexico, analysts say. The country has experienced those consequences before.

Upon taking office in 2006, President Felipe Calderón declared a war on criminal groups. The idea was to eradicate them and loosen their grip on the country. But targeting cartel leaders and engaging in direct confrontations only led to these groups splintering into more violent, brutal cells, leading to one of Mexico’s bloodiest periods.

Experts questioned how effective a deployment of 10,000 additional troops would be at delivering Mexico’s promised results when it came to fentanyl.

The lack of cooperation was something that American officials complained about during the administration of Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Given the importance to Mexico of avoiding tariffs, Mr. Maza said the National Guard may achieve results in the short and medium term. But, he warned, criminal groups are likely to adapt.

On curbing migration and illegal crossings at the border, Mexico may have a more straightforward path to success, having adopted several effective measures in the last year.

In exchange for deploying troops to the border and stemming the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the United States, Ms. Sheinbaum said she secured Mr. Trump’s agreement to do more to prevent American-manufactured firearms from entering Mexico.

This is not the first time that Mexico has made that argument.

In 2021, the country sued several gun makers and one distributor, blaming them for the devastating, decades-long bloodshed from which Mexico has struggled to recover. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide this year whether Mexico may sue gun manufacturers in the United States.

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