Mexico managed to avoid Trump’s tariff. Now what?

For extensive relief throughout her country, President Claudia Shinbom announced on Monday that it had paid a plan by the Trump administration to impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexican goods. She said that at first, it was accelerated at the stroke in the middle of the night, and the definitions were delayed for a month.

“We have this month to work, to persuade each other that this is the best way to move forward.” It indicates that she might be able to adhere to the sanctions completely, she said she told her American counterpart: “We will provide results. Good results for your people, and good results for the Mexican people.”

This announcement was seen as a victory for the Mexican government in dealing with Mr. Trump, who put a new tone of aggression in the first weeks of his presidency. He has even demanded that some of the closest allies in the United States are standing for his demands or face severe consequences in the form of a tariff or even a military force.

However, the deal will force Mexico to a 30 -day critical test, during which it should not last only its progress, but also achieve more progress in two of the most permanent challenges in the country: drug trafficking and immigration.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mexico will deploy 10,000 of the Mexican National Guard on the border. On the other hand, Ms. Shinbom said, the United States government will stop the flow of weapons to Mexico.

In his own statement, Mr. Trump did not mention a promise to help curb firearms, but he celebrated the deployment of Mexican forces.

While Mexico spent last year intensifying the enforcement of immigration, which has already contributed to a severe decrease in the American border crossings, the issue of drug smuggling is more complicated. “It will require that Mexico have” a very clear and well -defined plan. “Mexico said.

Mr. Trump and Thomas Human, The borders of management CaesarThe blame has been repeatedly blamed for an overdose of the Fintanel in the United States on the Mexican carters as well as immigrants who say they are moving the drug across the border. Mr. Human told Fox News that the Mexican Cartitals “killed a quarter of a million Americans with fentanel.”

Since 2019, Mexico has displaced China K. The largest supplier of fentanel To the United States. Besides being very strong, it is very easy to make the drug – and even easier to smuggle across the border or hidden under the clothes or in glove cabins. According to American public prosecutors, Sinaloa Cartel spends only $ 800 on chemicals to produce a kilo that can make a profit of $ 640,000 in the United States.

Mexico has been the source of almost all fentanel that has seized the application of American law in recent years, and the amount crossing the border has increased ten times in the past five years. But federal data shows that it was not brought by immigrants, but by American citizens It was recruited by Cartel Organizations. More than 80 percent of the people who were sentenced to trafficking in the southern border are American citizens.

“All of this makes it very difficult to match and control the market,” said Jaimi Lopez-Aranda, a security analyst based in Mexico City.

The administration of Mrs. Shinbom has already climbed its efforts to combat fentanel since I took office in October, including the largest troop of drugs – About 20 million doses Registered in Mexico. The security forces are regularly reporting the progress and dismantling of drug production laboratories.

But experts are asking about the amount of what these efforts really represent. “Mexico can continue to carry out symbolic works as they were recently,” said Mr. López-Aranda.

Analysts say that a full war on the cartals is likely to lead to counterproductive results and lead to more waves of violence throughout Mexico. The country has seen these consequences before.

Upon assuming office in 2006, President Felipe Calderon announced a war against criminal groups. The idea was to eliminate them and reduce their grip on the country. However, targeting Cartel leaders and engaging in direct confrontations only led to the expiry of these groups to more brutal violent cells, which leads to one of the bloody Mexico periods.

“What will happen even after we destroy all laboratories?” Mr. Gogdrdo said. “These men will focus more on blackmail, theft and murder. Mexico will be left to deal with the problem alone.”

According to the agreement announced on Monday, Mexico will also strengthen security forces at the border. Unlike the United States, Mexico does not have a specific security force dedicated to border patrols, rather than relying on a mixture of the Military Guard and the National Guard.

Experts asked about the effectiveness of the deployment of 10,000 additional soldiers in providing the promised Mexico’s results when it comes to fentanel.

“It may seem ten thousand members a lot, but the whole thing is in the details,” said Cecilia Farvan Mendes, a drug policy researcher at the Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego. “If you only do it on the border, this does not address the entire fentanil production chain.”

Aaron Reichlin-Maeelnik, an older colleague in the American Immigration Council, pointed out that this is the third time in the six years that Mexico has committed to sending a large publication of the National Guard on the American border.

Jonathan Mazza, a security analyst of Mexican headquarters, said that Mexico forces “will try to achieve results at any cost,” the most effective strategy is to make officials from both countries share more information and information to stop the drug flow.

The lack of cooperation was something that US officials complained during the administration of Mrs. Shinbom, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

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

Upon reducing immigration and illegal crossings on the border, Mexico may have a more clear way to success, after adopting many effective measures last year.

The National Guard forces are deployed at immigration checkpoints from north to south, and immigration officials as well The “pressure cancellation” policy has developed Where migrants are transported from concentrated areas in the north in the south to maintain pressure outside the border. The Mexican authorities have sometimes used for years, but their expansion in 2024 highlighted the country’s tightening policies.

The dismantling of the convoys of migrants heading to the United States is another step that Mexican officials have taken in recent years. When several appeared in the weeks before Mr. Trump took office, they were all dissolved.

The most stringent Mexico position, associated with President Joseph R. Biden Junior Executive order Last summer, to prevent immigrants who are not documented from receiving asylum on the border, he contributed to a significant decrease in illegal immigration on the border in 2024. In December a year ago.

The Mexican authorities also provided bureaucratic obstacles to immigrants and asylum seekers.

“The strategy of Mexico immigrants has exhausted and degenerated it,” said Mauro Perez Bravo, former head of the Citizen Council at the National Institute of Migration, which holds immigration policies in the country. “What I did is to deplete people emotionally and physically to prevent them from reaching the United States.”

In exchange for the deployment of forces on the border and the flow of fentanel and migrants to the United States, Ms. Xinbom said that she had obtained the approval of Mr. Trump to make more effort to prevent the American -made firearms from entering Mexico.

She said: “These high -energy weapons that illegally reach criminal groups are entertained and given a firepower,” she said.

This is not the first time that Mexico has presented this argument.

In 2021 File a lawsuit against many arms makers One distributor, blames them for the decades -continuing destructive blood that has struggled with Mexico to recover. US Supreme Court He will decide This year, whether Mexico has sued arms manufacturers in the United States. A Modern analysis It has been shown that nearly 9,000 arms dealers work across cities in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

But in his own statements, Mr. Trump did not mention any mention of Mrs. Shinbom’s request. It is not clear how his administration can actually meet such commitment and what, if anything, Mexico will do if it fails to do so.

James Wagnerand Polina Veligas and Simon Romero The reports contributed.