Sheinbaum concedes everywhere except sovereignty to keep USMCA alive

Mexico's foreign policy this spring is one long negotiation with Washington, conducted under threat. President Claudia Sheinbaum has chosen engagement over retaliation, and the price has been visible. Cartel leaders have flowed north, Chinese auto investments have been quietly blocked, and her government has absorbed insult after insult from the Trump administration without breaking off talks. Mexico is trying to keep the trade architecture intact long enough to reach the July 1 USMCA review with something to defend.

The formal review launched March 5, when U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard agreed to bilateral discussions on rules of origin, supply-chain security, and non-market inputs from China. The first technical round began the week of March 16; Greer and Ebrard scheduled their first negotiating session for May 25 in Mexico City. The mood hardened in early April. Trump signed a proclamation on April 2 raising tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper-intensive goods to 50 percent, and on April 21 Greer told Mexican industry leaders that the broader Trump tariffs are not going away. Sheinbaum called the metals measure unjust and refused to retaliate.

The security file has moved on Washington's terms. In February, Treasury sanctioned 24 people and entities tied to a CJNG-linked timeshare fraud network, one year after Mexico's main cartels were designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Mexico has continued large transfers of cartel figures into U.S. custody, and Sheinbaum has kept National Guard units pushed to the northern border. She has held one red line, repeatedly: no U.S. military or drone operations on Mexican soil. That line came under direct strain after the January U.S. operation in Venezuela, when Trump publicly mused that Mexico could be next; Sheinbaum condemned the strike and rejected any intervention, while keeping cooperation channels open.

Looking past the United States, Sheinbaum has worked to find friendlier rooms. She traveled to Barcelona on April 18 for the 'In Defence of Democracy' summit, where she met Pedro Sanchez in the first visit by a Mexican president to Spain in eight years, ending a rift that had run since 2019. She championed Cuba from the same stage and met Petro and Lula on the sidelines. With Canada, she and Mark Carney spoke on April 24 to coordinate USMCA positions, and Ebrard flew to Montreal and Toronto in early May. The Peru rupture, opened last November over Mexico's asylum to Betssy Chavez, hardened in late January when Brazil took custody of the Mexican embassy in Lima; ties with Ecuador remain frozen. Relations with Argentina chilled further when leaked audio in early May tied Javier Milei to a regional disinformation operation against Sheinbaum and Petro.