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How Mexico is preparing for the incoming Trump administration

Donald Trump
Gage Skidmore/CC BY 2.0
Donald Trump in July 2023.

President-Elect Donald Trump will be sworn in next week, with promises of mass deportations and tariffs in tow and our neighbors to the South are preparing for it all.

Mexico’s new president, leftist Claudia Sheinbaum has spoken out against Trump’s rhetoric about migrants, but has also given signs that she’s willing to work with Trump on migration and more.

Nina Kravinksy has been covering it all from KJZZ's Hermosillo bureau in Sonora, Mexico, and joined The Show to discuss.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Nina.

NINA KRAVINSKY: Good morning. Hey, Lauren.

GILGER: OK, so let's start here with immigration. Sheinbaum has said that she's got a plan to deal with mass deportations with Mexico's northern states should they happen under Trump as he has promised. What does that plan look like so far? What do we know?

KRAVINSKY: Yeah, so what we know about the plan kind of depends on what Trump actually does when he gets into office, right? So Sheinbaum has said several times that that there is a plan for mass deportations and whatever Trump may throw at Mexico in the next couple of weeks or beginning of his administration, but it sort of depends on what that looks like, right?

So it could end up looking like increased shelter capacity along the border if Trump were to reinstate Remain in Mexico, or it could look like bringing those migrants that are deported from the US.. to other parts of Mexico, maybe Mexico City. We do know that Sheinbaum is talking to governors in northern Mexican states along the border like Sonora, where I am, and they're together sort of developing a plan for different things that Trump could do in his first couple of weeks in office, which is when he said he'll sort of put in place different migration reforms, including mass deportation.

GILGER: Yeah, yeah. So would these migrants be sent to Mexico? I mean, I know this is up in the air right now, but most of these folks are not coming from Mexico anymore, right? Like they're coming through Mexico.

KRAVINSKY: Yeah, exactly. So that's really the big question here in Mexico right now. You're right that most of the migrants that are coming to the U.S. right now aren't from Mexico. They're from all over the world really. They're from Central America, South America, places like El Salvador, Venezuela, and even further away, Asia and Africa.

You know, Mexico's ideal situation involves not taking third country migrants, right? It could be a big strain on the economy here and it's Mexico would argue, sort of not their responsibility to take migrants who are, who are trying to get to the U.S.

But Mexico might not have much of a choice. You know, Trump is threatening Mexico with tariffs, which would be really bad for the economy here. And so they might sort of be forced to work with the Trump administration and potentially take large numbers of non-Mexican deportees from the U.S. Sheinbaum has said often she has this line, “coordinación sin subordinación.” She wants to coordinate with the Trump administration without being subordinate to them. And so she's walking this really thin line between coordinating with Trump and also protecting Mexico's sovereignty.

Arizonans would feel the pain of tariffs in the form of increased prices. But some experts suggest threatening the fees could help the president-elect bring Mexico to the negotiating table, and not just on trade.

GILGER: Very interesting. OK, we'll talk about those tariffs in just a moment, but let me ask you first about Sheinbaum’s rhetoric on this, right? Like she has talked about how Trump talks about migrants and sort of defended them, right?

KRAVINSKY: Yeah, totally. I mean, Trump and Shane Baum talk about migrants very differently, obviously, especially when it comes to migrants from Mexico. Sheinbaum repeatedly sort of said that her strategy is to convince the Trump administration first of all, that migrants are good for the U.S. economy, but of course those migrants staying in the U.S. is also good for Mexico's economy, even if Mexico were to only accept deported Mexican nationals.

Mexico would have to extend more social services to those people, and they would also lose out on a big part of the economy here, which is remittances, you know, migrants in the U.S. send billions of dollars a year back to Mexico, and it's a big part of the economy. So if all of those people were deported, it would have an impact here in Mexico. And of course, would have an impact in the U.S. because the U.S. really does rely on that labor.

GILGER: OK, so then let's spend a minute or two here, Nina, talking about tariffs. Trump has threatened these kind of massive 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico. We know that would probably like really increase the cost of some goods here in the U.S. Tell us, you know, what impact we're looking at.

KRAVINSKY: Yeah, so Mexico and the U.S. are both super important trading partners to the other because they have this free trade agreement. They're really, really entwined economically. And a lot of the things that Americans rely on come from Mexico, thinking about fresh produce at grocery stores, especially this time of year when there's less produce coming from colder parts of the U.S., a lot of it is coming from Mexico.

And so a 25% tariff would definitely raise prices at the grocery store. But also it could raise prices on, on things that Americans aren't buying every single day, like cars and trucks. Many of those are built in Mexico. Obviously, if U.S. consumers couldn't afford those goods anymore, it would be really bad for producers and people who work in factories here in Mexico.

In preparation for possible mass deportations under President-elect Donald Trump, Mexico aims to make it easier for migrants to contact their consulate if they fear imminent detention by immigration authorities.

GILGER: Trump also wants to renegotiate maybe the major trade deal between our countries, the USMCA plan that replaced NAFTA. Sounds like that could put Mexico in a tough spot as well.

KRAVINSKY: Yeah, totally. So USMCA, which is Trump's sort of renegotiated version of NAFTA, looks very similar to NAFTA, is up for a review period in 2026, next year. And it's very possible that the Trump administration could use that as a window to renegotiate this deal,, again. It was negotiated originally in 2017, 2018, and so, you know, he could use this as another opportunity to, to make changes.

One of the things that could come up in those renegotiations if they were to happen is Mexico's relationship with China. Some Canadian officials especially have expressed that they feel like there's too much Chinese investment in Mexico. They've even floated cutting Mexico out of the free trade agreement altogether. That's something that could come up in 2026 during those negotiations, and something that Sheinbaum is working really hard to sort of show the U.S. and Canada that they don't need to worry about Chinese investment in Mexico.

Mexico’s president said that her administration is in touch with other countries to prepare for President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to deport large numbers of people living in the U.S.

GILGER: OK, so how has Mexico responded to all of this? Like, will Sheinbaum, it sounds like, try to avoid letting some of this happen?

KRAVINSKY: Yeah. So, of course, the last thing that Mexico wants is a 25% tariff on its goods, as Trump has suggested. They really sort of do want to figure out ways that they can work with the Trump administration. He said, of course, that he wants to stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl across the border. But there's already a lot that Mexico is doing.

And Sheinbaum said in a letter to Trump right after he proposed these tariffs, Look, we really are sort of keeping a lot of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border already. Sort of what Mexico will do is, you know, break up or let migrant caravans coming from the south of the country dissolve, and then move them either to Mexico City or to other parts of the country. And make it a lot harder for them to get to the border in the first place.

And that's ramped up in the past couple of months and really has led to, you know, a decrease in apprehensions at the border. You're not seeing a ton of people coming in by foot right now.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Lauren Gilger, host of KJZZ's The Show, is an award-winning journalist whose work has impacted communities large and small, exposing injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.