WASHINGTON—Significant risks loom in the U.S.-Mexico relationship despite U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s warm personal ties, Lila Abed, who this month became director of the newly-created Mexico Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, told the Advisor in an interview last week.
“The United States is better when it cooperates with Mexico, and vice versa,” Abed said.
Even with unprecedented trade tensions, high-level cooperation on key issues has been remarkably productive under the Trump and Sheinbaum administrations, a notable difference from the state of affairs under former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said Abed.
Sheinbaum’s “government has shown to be different from her predecessor’s, particularly as it pertains to security cooperation, migration and even trade,” Abed said.
“Mexico has been cooperating very deeply with the United States in terms of deportations and stemming the flow of illegal migrants toward the U.S.-Mexico border,” Abed said, adding that Sheinbaum’s security strategy includes plans for nine new detention centers along the U.S. border and cash incentives for migrants to remain in Mexico.
Abed highlighted that as Sheinbaum has fallen in line with Washington on migration, mass deportations of Mexicans living in the United States “haven’t really come to fruition.”
But Sheinbaum’s compliance with Trump’s priorities has limits, Abed said. A unilateral U.S military strike against organized criminal groups “could happen,” she said, noting that the Trump administration in February designated six Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. “Hopefully it doesn’t, because I think it would take the bilateral relationship back decades,” Abed said.
“President Sheinbaum has been very clear that she will cooperate and coordinate, but that she will not subordinate, and that she will protect her sovereignty,” she added.
U.S. action against cartels without the consent of Mexico’s government would bring “unintended consequences on the economic front and also on migration, which might cause more violence and a dip in economic activity,” said Abed.
A review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which could come as early as the second half of this year, also hangs over U.S.-Mexico relations. “We’ve seen a clear indication from the White House that they want to speed up the timeline,” Abed said.
“There are new aspects that could be integrated” into a new or revised trade agreement, including unified governance around artificial intelligence, Abed added.
Ultimately, Mexico’s shared geography and deeply intertwined economy with the United States give it unique leverage, Abed said.
“As with any relationship between neighbors, there will be disagreements,” Abed said. “More cooperation, more alignment and more coordination always lends to a much better bilateral relationship.”
