How trump's 2nd Term Could Affect Mexico

From the NY Times

What’s at Stake for Mexico in a Second Trump Presidency?


Tariffs, border crossings, mass deportations of migrants and military strikes on cartels: Mexico is in the firing line of the president-elect.

By Simon Romero and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
Reporting from Mexico City
Nov. 6, 2024, 10:46 a.m. ET

Few places in the Americas stand to be as jolted by a new Trump presidency as Mexico, the nation of nearly 130 million people that the president-elect made the target of numerous threats during his campaign.

Now as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Mexico finds itself again at the center of his aggressive stances on trade, immigration and drug trafficking.

Despite a sharp decline in border crossings this year after Mexico emerged as an enforcer of the Biden administration’s migration restrictions, Mr. Trump’s campaign vows suggest a complex and contentious road ahead.

He is promising steep tariffs, renegotiated trade deals and even military intervention against cartels. How Mexico’s leaders, under President Claudia Sheinbaum, navigate this landscape will be pivotal, potentially setting the tone for North American diplomacy for years to come.

Here are four things to know about how a newly elected Mr. Trump might reshape the United States’ relations with Mexico.

1. Trump has vowed to bolster border security and deport millions of undocumented migrants.

Like his predecessor, Mr. Trump has big plans for remaking America’s immigration system. But their visions could not be more different.

Illegal crossings at the border are at their lowest levels in more than four years. Still, Mr. Trump has said his government would hire 10,000 new agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border and proposed using some of the military’s budget for border security.

“We’ve seen what Trump does. What he is proposing is the 3.0 version of the same increased pressures on Mexico,” said Tonatiuh Guillén, a former head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute, adding that in 2019 Mr. Trump’s demands led Mexico to take a militarized approach to enforcement.

For the past two U.S. administrations, Mexico effectively turned into an extension of the White House’s border policies. It became the wall, some analysts have said, that Mr. Trump vowed to build during his first term.

However, this election could lead the United States to enact new transit and entry bans, further tightening the border.

“Many immigrants would not be able to enter through regular pathways, as they are doing now, or they would be very quickly turned back from the United States,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

Mr. Trump has also vowed to carry out the largest deportation program in U.S. history, targeting many of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants living in the United States.

Undocumented migrants are most commonly from Mexico, accounting for about four million people. While a mass deportation program would face legal and logistical challenges, Raul Hinojosa, director of U.C.L.A.’s North American Integration and Development Center, said that there are growing concerns about the effect that the such deportations could have on Mexico.

If Mexican migrants are sent home, much of the money they send back to Mexico — $63 billion in 2023 — would plummet, depleting Mexico’s economy of one of its most important sources of income, Mr. Hinojosa said.

Mexico could also find itself pressured, as in the past, to accept Venezuelans, Nicaraguans or Cubans, who are sometimes unable to be deported to their origin countries for diplomatic reasons.

Unemployment in Mexico would also increase, with many of the deportees in the suddenly larger labor force looking for jobs.

“We’re going to see deportees who are harder to reintegrate,” said Eunice Rendón, the coordinator of Migrant Agenda, a coalition of migrant advocacy groups.

Taken together, Mexico’s economy could be pushed into a sharp recession, according to a study by researchers from U.C.L.A., the Petersen Institute for International Economics and the U.S. Naval Academy.

2. Trump has threatened up to 100 percent tariffs.

Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico, which has eclipsed China to become the largest source of imports in the United States. At one of his last rallies, he vowed to immediately place 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Mexico unless the government halts the flow of migrants and drugs to the United States.

That could send shock waves across Mexico, which is exceptionally dependent on trade with the United States. Around 80 percent of its exports go to the American market, according to Capital Economics, a research firm based in London.

“Mexico now looks potentially like the most exposed major economy” to Trump tariffs, said William Jackson, Capital Economics’ chief emerging markets economist.

Mr. Trump has also threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs — or even 200 percent — on vehicles imported from Mexico. That could deal a staggering blow to an industry that exports nearly $90 billion of finished vehicles to the United States, accounting for about 5 percent of Mexico’s G.D.P.

But given how deeply connected production chains are between Mexico and the United States, a move like this would likely harm American companies and consumers as well.

“Trump calls himself ‘The Tariff Man,’” said Pedro Casas, the general director of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico. “If you put 25 percent tariffs on everything exported from Mexico today, you’ll cause an inflationary shock in the U.S. market. I mean, that is not viable.”

3. Trump has said he would use military force against Mexico’s drug cartels.

During his previous term, Mr. Trump suggested shooting missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs. Other Republicans leaders have since embraced the idea of using U.S. military force against cartels in Mexican territory — even without Mexico’s consent.

In an interview with Fox News in July, Mr. Trump was asked whether he was prepared to use military force against Mexican drug cartels. “Absolutely,” Mr. Trump said. “Mexico’s going to have to straighten it out really fast, or the answer is absolutely.”

Such a move would be “extremely damaging” for the U.S.-Mexico relationship, said Rebecca Bill Chavez, head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research institute. It could jeopardize all cooperation between the two countries, she said, including commercial ties, but also efforts to control the flow of U.S.-bound migrants and drugs, such as fentanyl.

Mexican officials have warned that violation of the country’s sovereignty will not be tolerated.

“We are a country that must be respected,” Roberto Velasco Álvarez, the top North American official in Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told The New York Times last year. “We are not anyone’s colony or protectorate.”

Others caution that military strikes on cartels or targeted assassinations of their leaders may barely affect the drug flow into the United States.

Time and again during the decades-long drug wars in Latin America, similar efforts actually opened the way for new suppliers to muscle into the drug trade — as Mexican cartels did in the 1990s when Colombian cartels were on the decline.

“Maybe you get some heads put on a post, or whatever the 21st-century equivalent of that would be,” said Christopher Fettweis, a political science professor at Tulane University. “It’s not going to actually stop drugs from coming in.

4. Mexico’s previous president had a good rapport with Trump. Sheinbaum will try to replicate this.

Ms. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said that Mexico would collaborate with any U.S. leader, including Mr. Trump. “There is no reason to worry,” she told reporters on Wednesday morning. “There will be good relations with the United States, I am convinced of that.”

Earlier this week, Mr. Trump said at a rally in Raleigh, N.C., that he would inform her “on Day 1 or sooner” that if Mexico did not stop an “onslaught” of criminals and drugs, he would immediately impose tariffs.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, also faced Mr. Trump’s promised tariffs. He diffused those threats by deploying Mexico’s armed forces to manage the flow of migrants. The informal agreement between Mr. López Obrador and Mr. Trump was that Mexico would manage migration issues, while the White House would refrain from interfering in Mexico’s domestic affairs.

The strategy worked for Mr. López Obrador — who shares a populist, larger-than-life personality with Mr. Trump — to the point that he boasted, on several occasions, how he had convinced Mr. Trump to moderate his decisions.

It is unclear whether Ms. Sheinbaum will have the same influence on Mr. Trump. But on her Tuesday news conference, she seemed to send a message for both Democrats and Republicans. “Sometimes they don’t have enough information,” she said, “about the effort that Mexico has made to reduce migration.”

On the other hand......Trump had complete control of the senate and house for his first two years during his previous reign and accomplished nothing other than fighting with his own people. We'll have to wait and see.

If he does get these things done it won't bode well for American interests in Mexico.....

He's not going to be in charge for that long. The real heads of the Republican party will find a way to retire him, and their puppet Vance will be President.
Things will be even worse.

They've got the House and the Senate. They've got it all now. They can pass whatever evil legislation they want. And they will.

CanuckBob wrote:On the other hand......Trump had complete control of the senate and house for his first two years during his previous reign and accomplished nothing other than fighting with his own people. We'll have to wait and see.

If he does get these things done it won't bode well for American interests in Mexico.....

He was pretty inept and clueless at the start of his first term.  A true outsider, his initial picks for Cabinet and other high level positions were often legit and highly regarded people recommended by his transition team headed by Gov. Chris Christie, a conservative but not a nutbar (Christie is now a rabit anti-trumper).  As time went on trump fired many of his original appointees and hired people with few credentials recommended by Steve Bannon, et al.

Now he's connected with people who know the ropes about passing legislation and how to do work-arounds without legislation.  

The Federalist Society hand-picked the judges that he appointed to Federal courts, including 3 to SCOTUS.  He has enough of the judiciary in his pocket to do things that were stopped in his first term.  

He is far more dangerous now.

Excellent post, BisbeeGal and totally correct. There were plenty of people in Trump's previous cabinet, staff, etc., who although they may have been Republicans, were not evil, insane, full of hatred, or stupid. They kept his worst impulses and insane ideas in check.
There will now be some of the most evil, sadistic, disgusting creatures in America in charge- Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Michael Flynn, Elon Musk, Steven Miller to name but a few. There will be no one at all to be the sane adult in the room.

What just happened is appalling and extremely frightening.

BisbeeGal wrote:

CanuckBob wrote:On the other hand......Trump had complete control of the senate and house for his first two years during his previous reign and accomplished nothing other than fighting with his own people. We'll have to wait and see.

If he does get these things done it won't bode well for American interests in Mexico.....

He was pretty inept and clueless at the start of his first term.  A true outsider, his initial picks for Cabinet and other high level positions were often legit and highly regarded people recommended by his transition team headed by Gov. Chris Christie, a conservative but not a nutbar (Christie is now a rabit anti-trumper).  As time went on trump fired many of his original appointees and hired people with few credentials recommended by Steve Bannon, et al.

Now he's connected with people who know the ropes about passing legislation and how to do work-arounds without legislation.  

The Federalist Society hand-picked the judges that he appointed to Federal courts, including 3 to SCOTUS.  He has enough of the judiciary in his pocket to do things that were stopped in his first term.  

He is far more dangerous now.

Unauthorized military excursions into Mexico can be considered an act of war. I'll get our "go bag" packed since the locals think every expat around here is an American........lol.

I'm expecting many American systems to falter or fail and am worried about the banking system. I agree it is risky to have SS deposited to a foreign bank and will continue not doing that but now I think its safer to not keep money there and am thinking of pulling most US money out and and into my MX investment account.
Thoughts?

I would go with Canadian investments versus Mexico. The peso will crash if Trump implements the tariffs he said he will.

Thanks Bob, where would one find Canadian investments?
I'm so not good at this, don't even know where to begin.
Cash under the mattress is beginning to look like a viable option.

I'm a never-Trumper but.... I think that it is HIGHLY unlikely that the US Banking System will fail because of anything that Trump will try to do. He's not got THAT much influence over things. Screw up a lot... yes! Crater the US Banking system.... not hardly. A weak bank or two fail for some reason, maybe. There are powers in the US MUCH larger than the golden boy.

RickS wrote:I'm a never-Trumper but....   I think that it is HIGHLY unlikely that the US Banking System will fail because of anything that Trump will try to do. He's not got THAT much influence over things. Screw up a lot... yes!  Crater the US Banking system.... not hardly. A weak bank or two fail for some reason, maybe.  There are powers in the US MUCH larger than the golden boy.

Agree with above.  But there is always the chance that some rogue hacker OR a government-sponsored hacker will get lucky one day and infiltrate a major US system, could be banking, the power grid, the DOW/NASDAQ, government websites, news media, etc.  Russia, Iran, China, North Korea have already been caught trying to do so.

Trailrunner wrote:Thanks Bob, where would one find Canadian investments?
I'm so not good at this, don't even know where to begin.
Cash under the mattress is beginning to look like a viable option.

You could start by contacting someone like RBC Securites to open an account. I use them.

Given Trump's debt to the Cryptocurrency crowd, estimated at more than $30 million, I think it more likely that his administration could follow the trail blazed in 2021 by the autocratic president of El Salvador. There he declared a policy making bitcoin legal tender along side of the US Dollar and the salvadoran peso. In El Salvador banks and businesses are required to accept deposits and payments in bitcoin wherever offered. Conversion between bitcoin and the other currencies is at the crazy unregulated bitcoin market rates.

ColorMeBlue wrote:Given Trump's debt to the Cryptocurrency crowd, estimated at more than $30 million, I think it more likely that his administration could follow the trail blazed in 2021 by the autocratic president of El Salvador. There he declared a policy making bitcoin legal tender along side of the US Dollar and the salvadoran peso. In El Salvador banks and businesses are required to accept deposits and payments in bitcoin wherever offered. Conversion between bitcoin and the other currencies is at the crazy unregulated bitcoin market rates.        

I wasn't aware of this...thx for posting.

I googled and found this article, only a week old.

https://reason.com/2024/10/31/a-week-of-failing-to-pay-with-bitcoin-in-el-salvador/

Upshot seems to be the Ecuadorians are not onboard. But based on US election results at least 51% of Americans are stupid enough to go along.

reason.com wrote:When President Nayib Bukele promised that bitcoin would be accepted everywhere in El Salvador, it seemed like a glimpse into the future—a world where cryptocurrency would be woven into everyday life. But after a week there, I found a different reality. Not a single business accepted my bitcoin.

In September 2021, El Salvador became the world's first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. The vision was ambitious: According to Bukele, bitcoin would "improve the lives and the future of millions," making it easier to access financial services where traditional banking is often out of reach.

To incentivize adoption, the government launched the Chivo wallet app, offering $30 in bitcoin to anyone who signed up. Bitcoin ATMs popped up nationwide and plans were announced for Bitcoin City, a tax-free, bitcoin-powered metropolis fueled by geothermal energy from a volcano. El Salvador was on its way to become a global crypto hub.

Yet my trip to El Salvador revealed a gap between the promise and the reality. At restaurants, hotels, and shops, my attempts to pay with bitcoin were met with confusion or outright rejection. Despite a 2021 law requiring businesses to accept bitcoin, every establishment I visited turned it down. Instead, I received puzzled looks from waiters, clerks, and cashiers who seemed more perplexed than prepared.

A recent survey conducted by Francisco Gavidia University in San Salvador found that 92 percent of Salvadorans don't use bitcoin. This marks an increase from the 88 percent found in a similar study conducted by the Central American University, San Salvador last year.

Well, since he HAS been elected he does NOT need their 'go along' consent. He's not got a good history of 'giving a shit' about those who he has used to get what he wants.

Prediction: There is going to be a trove a things that will negatively affect many/much of that 51%. See this.... https://x.com/TheDixonWhite/status/1854393558553198934

From Today's WaPo

Washington Post wrote:As Trump prepares for mass deportations, Mexico Is Not Ready

Mexicans make up half of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. The country could be the most vulnerable to a new Trump policy to deport the undocumented.

This week, Donald Trump appointed Tom Homan as “border czar” and Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff, signaling a strong commitment to a hardline anti-immigration agenda. Few countries stand to be more affected than Mexico by what Trump has described as “the largest deportation in the history of our country.”

Nearly half of the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the United States are Mexican, according to analysts. Deporting them is cheaper and easier than sending migrants back to more distant countries that are at odds with Washington, such as Venezuela.

In Mexico, migrant advocates are alarmed at what’s coming. Sending millions of jobless Mexicans back to towns they left years ago could create chaos in areas already suffering from poverty and organized crime, they say.

“Neither the shelters nor the border area nor Mexico are ready for this,” said Héctor Silva, a Protestant pastor who runs the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas.

There are an estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. Transporting large numbers back home poses huge logistical challenges — in both countries.

Currently, U.S. authorities fly about 500 Mexican deportees a week back to Mexico City, where they’re met by government teams that help them find jobs and sign up for benefits, according to Arturo Rocha, a former senior Mexican immigration official.

Many more are deported across the U.S.- Mexico land border, where there’s insufficient infrastructure for large numbers of deportees, analysts say. There’s a network of migrant shelters, most run by religious groups. But they’re often underfunded.

“No one is prepared for deportations of this magnitude,” said the Rev. Francisco Gallardo, a Catholic priest who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. “Neither the governments nor the civil-society organizations.”

Complicating matters, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in October, is still putting together her team. There are vacancies in some key jobs that deal with migration.

Mexico will probably have to receive a large number of people at a time when its economy is slowing. The economy could shrink even further if Trump follows through on his threat to imposes tariffs on Mexican products. About 80 percent of Mexican goods — everything from avocados to automobiles — are exported to the United States.

Mexico’s unemployment rate is low, so the rise in joblessness could be temporary. But some of the migrants will end up trading working-class American incomes for much lower wages in Mexico. “They will be thrown into a new kind of poverty, which will make them more desperate,” said Adam Isacson, a migration analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy organization.

The economy could face yet another threat from the deportations — a drop in remittances. Mexicans in the United States sent home more than $60 billion last year. Large-scale deportations “could seriously affect the poorest people,” said Tyler Mattiace, an Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The deportations could also hurt the U.S. economy, which depends on undocumented workers to fill jobs in industries such as construction, hospitality and agriculture.

Organized crime could also benefit.

Tom Homan, Trump’s newly named “border czar,” has said the operation will initially focus on undocumented migrants who’ve committed crimes or received deportation orders from judges but failed to leave the United States.

“We’ve got to go for the worst first,” he told The Washington Post in an interview Monday.

Few Americans would oppose deporting convicted criminals; that was a priority under the Biden administration, too.

But U.S. immigration crackdowns have had the inadvertent effect of strengthening organized-crime groups south of the border. Cartels earn billions of dollars by “taxing” smugglers whom migrants hire to get through Latin America and over the heavily guarded U.S. border. Many crime groups also kidnap migrants for ransom.

After Trump introduced the “Remain in Mexico” policy in 2019, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their immigration hearings, thousands of them were abducted by crime groups in dangerous border cities.

The Rev. Marvin Ajic, a Catholic priest who operated a migrant shelter in Nuevo Laredo for four years, said organized-crime groups could take advantage if the new deportation effort dumps large numbers of Mexicans into already violent cities.

“The cartels have practically declared control of the northern zone” of Mexico, he said. “The migrants are going to be more vulnerable.”

Mexico might be able to absorb its own deported citizens. What’s not clear is whether the Trump administration will press its government to also receive migrants from other countries.

Trump has called for reviving both “Remain in Mexico” and Title 42, which denied entry to migrants on the grounds they could pose a health hazard. The policies led to large numbers of non-Mexican migrants crowding border cities.

“I don’t think Trump’s plan is just to deport Mexicans” to its southern neighbor, said Eunice Rendón, the co-director of Agenda Migrante, an advocacy group based in Mexico City. “That’s where the complexities will begin. The border will become very congested.”

What is Mexico’s plan?
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Monday that her government will reach out to the Trump transition team and advocate for Mexican migrants living in the United States.

Mexican officials argue they have a strong hand in dealing with Trump on immigration. Under pressure from the Biden administration, Mexico launched its own crackdown on migrants this past year. That played a key role in driving down U.S. border detentions by 78 percent since December. Now they’re even lower than they were when Trump finished his first term.

Asked about Homan’s appointment, Sheinbaum told reporters Monday that “we are always going to defend Mexicans on the other side of the border.” Her government has said it will strengthen staffing at the more than 50 Mexican consulates in the United States to help ensure migrants’ rights are respected.

But Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of at least 25 percent if Mexico doesn’t drastically slow the flow of migrants and drugs over the border. Given Mexico’s dependence on U.S. trade, Sheinbaum may wind up giving in on some of Trump’s demands — as her predecessor, president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, did during Trump’s first term.

“We are prepared to receive large numbers; we have done this before,” said Rocha, the former immigration official. “But the key question is, how massive will massive deportations be?”

Valentina Muñoz Castillo contributed to this report.

Yeah, who is going to do the hard work in the US that tnose illegals do?  Sure won’t be the ones who voted Trump in.

I think that it all depends on how it all plays out.  There is NO WAY in hell that the Trump Administration can 'find and deport' that many undocumented Mexicans in the short term.

The new Czar suggests that they will concentrate first on those 'who’ve committed crimes or received deportation orders from judges but failed to leave the United States.    Even THAT will be a monumental task. But it will look like progress.

But rounding up and deporting 'all' the undocumented Mexicans in the US will take years as the logistics and cost of doing that are staggering. Sounds good for their constituents to hear but....  

In the mean time a lot of hard working Mexicans will suffer AND we in the US better get used to not having much to eat because THEY are the workers who put all that food on our tables. And mow our lawns and paint and roof our houses and butcher our beef and raise our chickens and.... well, you get the idea.