US tariffs on Mexico trigger unprecedented crisis between two key partners
US President Donald Trump's decision to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico has not only sparked a trade war, but also a crisis with serious accusations between two partners who are expected to negotiate on critical issues such as migration and security.
Diametrically opposed, Trump and leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum clashed on Saturday after the Republican, in justifying trade taxes, accused the Mexican government of having an "alliance" with drug cartels. The White House added in X that these mafias "endanger the national security and public health of the United States."
Sheinbaum, who has called for a "cool head" in the face of Trump, called this accusation "slander" and rejected "any interventionist intention" in her country, which shares a 3,100 km border with the United States.
It is the first time that Washington has launched an accusation of this type directly against the Mexican government, although American politicians and analysts had pointed to an alleged collusion between criminals and authorities, former Mexican ambassador Agustín Gutiérrez Canet told AFP. "It is very worrying (...) it is really unprecedented that the United States government has already formally linked, in an official document, the Mexican government to drug trafficking," he added.
"They always targeted a specific official or local politicians (...) This is much more disturbing because it is an accusation against the Mexican State," internationalist Raudel Ávila stressed to AFP. Sheinbaum assured Trump that the "alliance" with crime actually occurs between American armories, where the vast majority of weapons trafficked to Mexico and held by criminals come from.
The Republican's accusation follows his executive order declaring powerful cartels terrorists, which Mexico opposed because it considers it opens the door to interventionism. On the trade front, Sheinbaum announced "tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico's interests," although without providing details.
- Long dispute -
Both countries have been locked in accusations for decades about the escalation of drug smuggling. Mexico blames Washington for its inability to stop the flow of weapons that fuels the violence of organized crime, which is attributed to some 480,000 homicides and nearly 110,000 disappearances since 2006, when the anti-drug fight was militarized.
In recent years, the White House's main concern has been the trafficking of fentanyl, a powerful opioid linked to tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the United States. Washington accuses China of not doing enough to prevent the trafficking of inputs to manufacture this drug, for which it also imposed new tariffs on this country and Canada.
Sheinbaum, who took office in October 2024, defended on Saturday that her government has seized some 40 tons of drugs, including 20 million doses of fentanyl. She also mentioned the arrest of more than 10,000 people linked to the cartels.
The previous Joe Biden administration criticized the "hugs, not bullets" strategy of former leftist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), but the differences were handled in the diplomatic field. That vision, which the popular Sheinbaum has promised to maintain, proposes attacking poverty as a cause of violence, rather than armed combat against the mafias.
During López Obrador's government, anti-drug cooperation with the United States was also reduced, among other things due to a reform that limited the role of foreign agents, now obliged to report their operations to the Mexican authorities.
- Pressure to prevail -
The internationalist Ávila believes that Trump's attack, for now without evidence, seeks to "put pressure" on the Mexican government "to give in to its demands" on trade, security and migration, another issue invoked by Trump to impose tariffs on exports from Mexico and Canada, his partners in the T-MEC trade agreement.
According to the president, his two neighbors are also not doing enough to prevent thousands of migrants from illegally crossing the border, which is why since he returned to power, on January 20, he ordered the military presence in that area to be reinforced, canceled a program to request asylum and began a campaign of mass deportations. But Sheinbaum stressed on Saturday that her government has contributed to reducing irregular crossings.
During Trump's first term (2017-2021), Mexico faced tariffs in specific sectors, such as steel and aluminum. The measures were lifted after Mexico deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to stop the passage of migrant caravans and agreed to let asylum seekers from other countries wait for a response on its territory.
Trump revived that program, known as "Stay in Mexico," although unilaterally. Despite raising her tone against Trump, Sheinbaum told him that she does not want "confrontation" and proposed a "working table" with the "best teams" in public health and security. It is an "excess of confidence" by the Mexican president in front of someone like Trump, said Gutiérrez Canet.
