Relations between the new administration of US President-elect Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum could be complex, according to experts.
Negotiating with a politician like Donald Trump is not an easy task. If, in addition, the person doing it is a woman whose character has nothing to do with that of the Republican and presides over a country against which the American has harshly attacked, things get complicated.
“Trump does not negotiate with a scheme in which everyone wins a little,” explained Martha Bárcena, Mexico's ambassador in Washington from 2018 to 2021, and who had to do so when the Republican threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico if it did not stop migration. “For him, negotiating and winning a negotiation is imposing his points of view on the other.”
Mexico faces a second Trump presidency and few countries can match its experience being the target of his wrath: threats to close borders, imposing tariffs, sending troops to confront cartels.
Not to mention his promise of mass deportations from day 1 of his new mandate that can not only represent a humanitarian challenge for the Mexican government, but also a very severe blow to its economy because the remittances that Mexicans receive from their relatives in the United States are one of the country's main sources of income.
Although this second stage may resemble the first, when tariffs were avoided thanks to the Mexican government quietly giving in to American immigration pressures, circumstances have changed and not necessarily for the better.
Trump now has a more radical speech than in the past, his party has greater support in Congress and he does not have in front of him a leader of a similar character such as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but rather a politician, Claudia Sheinbaum, with whom chemistry seems more difficult to achieve.
López Obrador, a charismatic and folksy former president who did not hesitate to call Trump a “friend,” shared with his counterpart a transactional vision of politics: you give me what I want, I give you what you want.
But while López Obrador was forged in the give-and-take politics of the PRI, the hegemonic party for almost the entire 20th century, the current president grew up in a family of left-wing activists and was politically forged in radical student movements.
“Claudia is more ideological than López Obrador, so the problem is that I see her potentially responding to Trump's policies, whether in terms of organized crime, immigration or tariffs, with a much more nationalist and patriotic vision,” said Arturo. Sarukhán, former ambassador of Mexico to the United States from 2007 to 2013.
Additionally, he fears the relationship could become complicated given Trump's frequent use of misogynistic rhetoric.
For now, Sheinbaum has achieved something in her favor by being one of the first world leaders to speak with Trump to congratulate him after his victory.
But during Thursday's call, the American did two things that give clues to what the future of relations may be like: he made his priorities clear by bringing up “the issue of the border” but without going into more details – according to Sheinbaum herself. — and sent greetings to López Obrador, mentor of the current president whose speech and promises Sheinbaum has endorsed and who some believe will maintain power in the shadows.
Not everything has changed for the worse
Cross-border trade between Mexico and the United States is going through its best moment, with transactions exceeding $800 billion annually, and American companies are more dependent than ever on Mexican ones.
But the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, is about to be reviewed, and Mexico has introduced legal changes to its Constitution that Trump could take advantage of to demand a renegotiation of parts of that agreement.
Sheinbaum affirmed that “there is a strategy and there is dialogue with the United States and with President Trump” and assured that if there are differences they will know how to resolve them. But he has also suggested that his government will not be intimidated.
“When problems arise, we will face them with dignity, with pride and knowing who we represent, which is our great people,” he indicated.
Past experience didn't work out too well.
Trump's former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, described in a book how Mexico's then-chief negotiator, former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, bowed in late 2018 to his demands to agree that asylum seekers in the United States could be returned to Mexico. (even if they were not Mexican) while they waited for the resolution of their cases.
For former ambassador Bárcena, accepting that program was one of the big mistakes because it now “sets a very dangerous legal precedent” given the current promise of deportations.
According to Pompeo, the only thing Ebrard asked was that the agreement not be made public, something that the Mexican denied, although he did say that with his negotiation he had avoided a much worse agreement: that Mexico would become a “safe third country” for the Migrants who set foot in its territory would have to request asylum in Mexico and not in the United States.
Today Ebrard is Secretary of the Economy and is expected to lead the Mexican delegation in the review of the T-MEC, something that Trump has received with derision. (“I've never seen anyone bend like that,” the American said a long time ago of the Mexican).
Ebrard argues that both the closure of the border and the imposition of tariffs would also harm the United States and that it will be necessary to negotiate “with cold blood and intelligence.”
“I'm optimistic, I'm not saying it's going to be easy… but the relationship with President Trump is going to be very good,” he said Thursday. “And what unites us? Well, what unites us are these numbers, it is a gigantic economy.”
The diplomats interviewed see this optimism and minimizing threats as dangerous.
Bárcena considered it a mistake to approach certain issues from “economic rationality”, for example, thinking that Mexican migrants are key to the US economy, when “the logic that is prevailing in Trump regarding migration is the logic of national security and cultural identity struggles”.
Trump's other important concerns, being able to recover jobs in the United States and the growing rivalry with China, also pass through Mexico.
Foreign automakers have set up dozens of plants in Mexico, and some Americans worry that Chinese companies could do the same to take advantage of current trade rules and export to the United States.
It does not help that Sheinbaum has promoted constitutional changes proposed by López Obrador such as the recently approved judicial reform that, according to the US government, could end judicial independence, a requirement of the T-MEC.
Furthermore, “if they go ahead with the elimination of independent regulators and autonomous organizations – an initiative in parliamentary process – that will be a new violation of the T-MEC,” Sarukhán said. “And then that's going to make things even worse.
Obviously, the big piece is going to be China and the Chinese footprint in Mexico.”
And then there is the fight against organized crime.
Sheinbaum took office on October 1 and like his predecessor, he would never accept that US forces operate independently on Mexican soil.
However, he seems to be tacitly abandoning López Obrador's strategy of not confronting the cartels and there are signs that could point to a greater effort in the fight against drugs, such as the recent seizure of more than 300,000 fentanyl pills when in 2020 they were barely requisitioned. 50 grams per week.
But Bárcena warns that “in security, confidence in Mexico-United States cooperation has been lost,” and gives as an example the controversy after the arrest of two important leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel in July. And in this area, it is possible that Trump “wants to start almost from scratch again,” he adds.
While confirming how far Trump goes in all his promises, Sarukhán is convinced that “he will raise his voice loudly and carry a big stick.”