The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) was signed in 2018 and came into effect in 2020. The first USMCA review is scheduled for July 1, 2026. If the three countries decide to extend the USMCA, the agreement continues for another 16 years, with another review scheduled for 2032. But if no consensus is reached on extending the agreement, the USMCA will be reviewed annually until its expiration date in 2036.

The USMCA replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which had governed trade among the three countries since 1994. The agreement preserved tariff-free trade across most sectors while updating several key rules for industries, such as automotive manufacturing, digital commerce, and intellectual property. It also added stronger labor and environmental standards and new enforcement tools. Importantly, the agreement included a “sunset clause,” requiring the three countries to review the pact every six years and decide whether to extend it.

The upcoming USMCA review is already shaping the behavior of both Mexico and Canada as they position themselves for negotiations with Washington. The review should not be seen merely as a routine trade exercise. It presents an opportunity for the United States to advance broader national interests in North America.

Mexico has increasingly cooperated with the United States ahead of the USMCA review—and it has been noticed. “The Mexicans are being quite pragmatic right now. We’ve had a lot of discussions with them,” United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox Business. “With the Canadians, it’s more challenging. They continue to have certain barriers” (Wingrove, 2026).

The upcoming USMCA review provides additional leverage for the United States to force concessions from Mexico on additional matters in the U.S. national interest, such as the deep collusion between drug cartels and Mexican politicians—especially in the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional—National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party (Ford Maldonado, 2022). The U.S. could also use trade and the threat of tariffs to reorient the MORENA regime’s policy of propping up Latin American leftists and providing succor to non-democratic countries such as Cuba, to which Mexico provided oil until recently (Biekmann, 2026).

Commercial pressure has a track record of forcing action in Mexico. The ruling party had already stepped up immigration enforcement prior to Trump taking office in January 2025 after the Biden Administration closed a pair of railway bridges between Mexico and Texas (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2023).

The United States’ policy of putting all options on the table is prudent. Mexico has reoriented its economy over the past 40 years toward international trade and manufacturing for export, with its output primarily heading to the United States. Hence, Mexico responds to commercial pressure, making the USMCA review an opportunity to guarantee security cooperation from Mexico, to force the country to confront government collusion with drug cartels, and to reorient its foreign policy away from Latin America’s bad actors and powers hostile to U.S. interests.

The USMCA review provides an opportunity for the United States to pursue its national interests in Mexico. It also offers the rare chance for striking a grand bargain: Mexico receives access to the world’s biggest consumer market for its exports in exchange for becoming a true partner on security, migration enforcement, and drug interdiction, while turning its foreign policy from rhetorically hostile to U.S. involvement in Latin America to an ally, or something better resembling its stated interest of non-intervention.

The United States can strike a grand bargain with Mexico in the USMCA review to ensure that Mexico becomes a more cooperative, prosperous, and safe neighbor, one aligned with U.S. security and hemispheric priorities.

USMCA OVERVIEW

The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement was signed on November 30, 2018, at the Group of 20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. President Donald Trump hailed the agreement as “the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history” (Trump et al., 2018).

As previously mentioned, the USMCA replaced NAFTA. The original NAFTA expanded an existing U.S.–Canada free-trade agreement (enacted in 1989) by ushering in continental free trade starting in 1994. The agreement reoriented Mexico’s inwardly focused, import-substitution economy toward a manufacturing-for-export model. Mexican exports to the United States soared tenfold from $49.5 billion in 1994 to more than $500 billion in 2025 (Office of the United States Trade Representative, n.d.). Mexico became the United States’ top trading partner in 2025, surpassing Canada as its top buyer, and having previously surpassed the USMCA partner, along with China (Wagner, 2025).

The USMCA was implemented on July 1, 2020. President Trump and then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) celebrated the implementation with a Rose Garden ceremony in July 2020 (which was skipped by then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), with Trump saying, “The relationship between the United States and Mexico has never been closer than it is right now.” (U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico, 2020).

According to proponents, the new USMCA modernized NAFTA. Major changes to the agreement included stricter rules of origin for the automotive sector. The rules require 75% of a vehicle’s components to be manufactured in North America, an increase from the 62.5% minimum mandated under NAFTA. Additionally, at least 40%–45% of automotive content must be manufactured by workers earning at least $16 per hour—known as the value content requirement (Office of the United States Trade Representative, n.d.).

The USMCA enshrined labor and environmental standards. The labor standards include a “Rapid Response Mechanism,” which permits U.S. officials to act against manufacturing facilities in Mexico accused of violating collective bargaining rights—a move against so-called “white unions” that respond more to company interests than worker demands. Violations of workers’ rights can result in the suspension of USMCA tariff benefits, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) (Office of the United States Trade Representative, n.d.). The United States requested reviews under the Rapid Response Mechanisms at least 31 times between 2021 and 2024, according to the USTR (Office of the United States Trade Representative, 2024).

The new USMCA also included digital trade chapters to cover products such as software, e-books, and music that did not exist when the original NAFTA was negotiated. Under the USMCA, Investor-State Dispute Settlement was eliminated for U.S.–Canada disputes and significantly restricted for U.S.–Mexico disputes, where only certain sectors and claims remain eligible for arbitration (Howse, 2024). The USMCA also has a sunset clause, which requires the agreement to be reviewed every six years (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, n.d.).

2026 REVIEW PROCESS

U.S. trade officials have held talks with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts ahead of the first mandatory USMCA review, scheduled for July 1, 2026. Both Canada and Mexico have expressed a desire to continue under the current USMCA as the two countries ship most of their exports to the United States. The two countries have attempted to diversify trade in recent years, in part to mitigate potential disruptions should the USMCA unravel, including enhanced Mexico–Canada trade (Kirby, 2025). But replacing the U.S. market is near impossible given its size and geographic convenience. Unwinding the USMCA would also be extraordinarily difficult, according to experts, as continental supply chains cover the three countries and components for finished goods (such as vehicles) cross borders multiple times during the manufacturing process. “North America’s production platform is deeply integrated. Energy flows, automotive supply chains, industrial inputs, and cross-border capital commitments are not easily reversed without substantial domestic disruption,” wrote Diego Marroquín Bitar, a Mexican trade expert (Marroquín Bitar, 2026).

On February 1, 2025, Trump imposed emergency tariffs of 25% on Mexico and Canada, along with additional tariffs on China. The White House said the tariffs were needed to spur action on halting illegal migration and stopping fentanyl from entering the United States. The White House argued that “the government of Mexico has afforded safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics” (The White House, 2025). Trump subsequently paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 30 days (Alire Garcia et al., 2025).

Tariffs were imposed on March 4, but carve-outs were announced two days later for goods complying with USMCA rules (Kearney et al., 2025). Additional sector-specific tariffs, including on Mexican steel and aluminum, were later announced, alongside the suspension of an anti-dumping agreement on tomatoes (Singh, 2025).

Subsequent legal challenges, including a Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorities for broad-based tariffs, have introduced uncertainty around the durability of such measures. At the same time, ongoing Section 301 investigations into Mexico and China signal that trade tools remain under active consideration as part of a broader effort to influence partner behavior on security and economic issues.

Trade consultants and industry analysts have said some companies in Mexico and Canada had previously opted to pay most-favored nation status tariffs to export to the United States rather than incur the costs of USMCA compliance. However, this dynamic shifted significantly in 2025, as exports complying with the USMCA more than doubled over the course of 2025 to nearly 90% by November, according to U.S. officials (Morales, 2026).

Despite having championed the negotiation and approval of the USMCA during his first term, President Trump has recently downplayed the importance of the agreement’s future. He has spoken of wanting to return automotive manufacturing back from Mexico and Canada, much to the dismay of officials in both countries. “I want to see Canada and Mexico do well, but the problem is we don’t need their product,” Trump said in Michigan in January 2026. “You know, we don’t need cars made in Canada. We don’t need cars made in Mexico. We want to make them here. And that’s what’s happening” (Trump, 2026).

Past trade negotiations focused primarily on commercial matters, but Trump is putting all parts of the bilateral relationship on the table: security, immigration, and commerce. Mexico’s ability to deliver results on security, migration enforcement, and drug interdiction now matters as much as commercial concerns, according to analysts. “Security cooperation is no longer on a separate track; it has become a gatekeeper for economic certainty. For Mexico, the task is no longer to demonstrate goodwill, but to deliver durable, verifiable results that can withstand political pressure in Washington” (Marroquín Bitar et al., 2026).

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum appears willing to make major concessions. She has quietly sent more than 90 drug cartel bosses to the United States, forgoing the usual extradition process. Mexico has permitted U.S. aircraft to fly over the country—a sharp contrast from López Obrador, who boasted that he denied U.S. officials permission to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon if it crossed into Mexican territory. Further, Sheinbaum has allowed U.S. special forces to enter Mexico to train their Mexican counterparts, in addition to accepting U.S. policies such as designating certain drug cartels as terror organizations (U.S. Department of State, 2025).

Bilateral relations between the United States and Mexico have long been thorny. The Mexican–American War resulted in Mexico surrendering half its territory, including the present-day states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. The White House recently celebrated the 178th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, and noted Trump’s defense of the southwestern border, which drew a disappointed response from Mexico (The White House, 2026). “We’re not like Santa Anna. We always have to defend [Mexico’s] sovereignty,” Sheinbaum responded, referring to Antonio López de Santa Anna, the 11-time president, who is seen as a sellout in modern Mexico for overseeing the catastrophic loss of Texas and Mexico’s northern territory (Mexico News Daily, 2026).

Previous U.S. administrations often kept silent on the war, preferring not to offend Mexican sensibilities, while avoiding open acknowledgements of U.S. dominance in the bilateral relationship. NAFTA was seen as an opportunity to drive economic development in Mexico, promote economic integration with the United States, and foment democracy in a country in the grips of one-party rule. It also aimed at stabilizing Mexico as it weathered the fallout of populist and profligate economic policies, resulting in a currency crash and U.S. bailout (González-Reyes, 2017).

DISTANT NEIGHBORS

Analysts often described U.S.–Mexico relations as “distant neighbors,” drawing on the title of a 1984 book on Mexico by journalist Alan Riding. The U.S. and Mexican economies became intertwined with NAFTA as supply chains expanded across the three borders. Security cooperation between the United States and Mexico became closer, too, especially under the administration of President Felipe Calderón, who launched a crackdown on drug cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006 (Gereben Schaefer et al., 2009).

Senior officials from both countries say they previously kept thorny issues separate during bilateral talks; commerce was kept strictly separate from immigration, for example. This arrangement ended with Trump’s 2016 election. The U.S. president made Mexico a focus during his successful campaign for the presidency. He promised to build a border wall and curb illegal immigration. He also promised to end NAFTA, which he blamed for job losses in the U.S. manufacturing sector, and called it the “single worst deal ever approved” (Severns, 2016).

The USMCA was negotiated without Mexico making major concessions on security and migration, limiting its usefulness as a tool for advancing broader U.S. priorities. At the time, bilateral relations were largely managed by Mexican foreign secretary Luis Videgaray, who worked closely with President Trump's then-senior advisor, Jared Kushner (Anderson, 2017). This dynamic persisted despite political uncertainty in Mexico. Leftist-nationalist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the 2018 presidential election in a landslide, raising concerns during the campaign about his stance on free trade. Although he had previously criticized NAFTA, López Obrador ultimately endorsed the USMCA negotiations and final deal so long as it included provisions keeping Mexican energy assets in government hands (France 24, 2018). As a result, the agreement secured continuity in North American trade relations but did not address key U.S. concerns beyond economics—particularly on security cooperation and migration—leaving those issues largely decoupled from trade policy.

TYING TARIFFS TO MIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

The agreement’s signing coincided with massive migrant caravans traversing the length of Mexico, taking thousands of mostly Central American participants from the Suchiate River that separated Mexico and Guatemala to Tijuana on the U.S.–Mexico border (BBC News, 2018). It also coincided with López Obrador taking office on a promise not to do “the dirty work” of any foreign government on migration (Agren, 2018a). López Obrador launched a program of humanitarian visas for migrants upon taking office in December 2018, but he was forced to reverse the scheme in short order after a deluge of migrants arrived at Mexico’s southern border (Agren & Gómez, 2019).

In response to large migrant caravans transiting through Mexico, President Trump began threatening tariffs on Mexican exports unless migration was halted. Mexico responded by deploying members of its newly formed National Guard, a militarized police force, to the northern and southern borders to stop migrants (Semple, 2019).

Migration continued through Mexico after the deployment, but Mexico’s response showed the country’s sensitivity to commercial pressure and to potentially restricted access to the U.S. market. The Biden Administration exerted quieter pressure in late 2023, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed two railway bridges connecting Mexico and the Texas cities of Eagle Pass and El Paso so that personnel could process migrants. The closures cost Mexican companies an estimated $100 million in lost exports daily (Oré et al., 2024). It prompted the Mexican government to escalate an aggressive scheme of detaining migrants and returning them to its southern states rather than their countries of origin, effectively keeping them away from the U.S. border.

THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT’S “INTOLERABLE ALLIANCE”

President Donald Trump announced tariffs on Mexico and Canada in early 2025. The White House described the Mexican government as having an “intolerable alliance” with drug cartels and has continued to call out problems in Mexico, despite his admiration for Sheinbaum and others in his administration stating their satisfaction with Mexican cooperation. The praise is especially effusive for security secretary Omar García Harfuch, who has forged close relationships with his U.S. counterparts (Nicas, 2025a).

The U.S. president’s claims of drug cartel collusion have a long history in Mexico. Governments from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled the country for 71 consecutive years until 2000, tolerated drug cartel activities so long as violence was kept to a minimum—an arrangement known as pax narca, or narco-peace (Homs, 2022). Payoffs were commonplace, and drug cartel influence reached the top. In 1997, Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, an army brigadier general, was convicted in Mexico of drug and firearm trafficking, racketeering, and corruption. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, though his sentence was reduced in 2011 and his title was eventually reinstated (Gómez Licón, 2013).

NARCO-POLITICS

Drug cartels moved into the political arena, too, as the country transitioned to a multi-party democracy in the 1990s, culminating with Vicente Fox winning the presidency in 2000. Politicians turned to criminal groups to help secure close elections, leveraging their organizational muscle, coercion, and financial wherewithal. Once in power, drug cartels demanded ongoing payoffs and control over parts of government—often on the municipal level—such as public works contracts, the waterworks, treasuries, and police forces (Agren, 2016).

Criminal groups also started exerting territorial control, facilitating the movement of drugs and expansion into crimes such as kidnapping and extortion (Save Democracy, 2024). Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, estimated drug cartels control roughly 40% of Mexican territory – a figure dismissed by López Obrador (Davidson, 2021).

The increasing importance of controlling governments is demonstrated by rising levels of election-related violence. At least 39 candidates, potential candidates, and people involved in politics were murdered ahead of the 2024 elections, according to a report from Integralia Consultores (Cano, 2024). The report also documented nearly 750 incidents of political violence in the 2024 election cycle—more than double the number recorded in the 2018 election cycle (López Cruz, 2024).

Suspicions of cartel intervention in electoral campaigns are commonplace. Calderón oversaw a wave of more than two dozen arrests of mayors and public officials across western Michoacán state on drug cartel collusion accusations—mostly from the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, which never accepted his narrow 2006 victory over its candidate, López Obrador—though all were eventually ordered released (Beauregard, 2014a).

La Familia Michoacana mobilized for the PRI in Michoacán against PAN candidate Luisa María Calderón, the then-president’s sister, according to according to journalist and security analyst Eduardo Guerrero . That election winner, Fausto Vallejo, resigned in 2013, citing health problems, though his son had been accused of drug cartel connections. The interim governor, while he was receiving a liver transplant, Jesús Reyna, was arrested on drug charges (Beauregard, 2014b).

NARCO SUPPORT FOR MORENA

The Sinaloa Cartel has long operated clandestinely to support preferred political candidates. In 2021, however, it acted far more openly, intervening on behalf of the ruling MORENA party in the gubernatorial election in its home state of Sinaloa. The cartel kidnapped PRI operators on the eve of the election, and they only released the workers after polls closed, showing an overwhelming MORENA victory (Hernández López, 2021). This shift reflects a broader trend of cartels becoming increasingly bold in their political interventions.

In the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas—a state long disputed by drug cartels—MORENA won 87% of the vote in a voting district controlled by a so-called self-defense force (known as Columna Armada Pedro J. Méndez) in the 2022 state election. It claimed 100% of the vote at some polls and expelled the state police, according to media reports (Raziel, 2022). Journalist Héctor de Mauleón published leaked U.S. diplomatic cables that alleged that the campaign of successful MORENA gubernatorial candidate Américo Villarreal received funding from the Cartel del Noreste, which dominates the Nuevo Laredo crime plaza (De Mauleón, 2022). Villarreal vigorously denied the accusations of illicit campaign funding. Ken Salazar, the then-U.S. ambassador to Mexico, told reporters that the diplomatic cables did not come from the United States (La Politica Online, 2022).

Reuters reported that prosecutors in Morelos state accused then-governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco of having “delivered” control of the local water utility to the head of a drug cartel while serving as mayor of Cuernavaca. Blanco denied the accusations, and López Obrador publicly defended him. Analysts noted that Blanco’s political value—particularly his ability to mobilize support among marginalized youth who idolized him as a soccer star—may have contributed to his continued support despite the allegations (Jorgic, 2023). This episode illustrates how political considerations can complicate or blunt responses to alleged cartel-linked corruption.

Most notoriously, Adán Augusto López, interior minister under López Obrador, appointed a police chief with ties to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) while serving as governor of Tabasco in southeastern Mexico, López Obrador’s home state, according to military intelligence documents (Abi-Habib & Villegas, 2025). López, a close ally of López Obrador, ran with the former-president’s blessing as a MORENA presidential candidate and led the party in the Senate until resigning as leader in early 2026 (Sheridan, 2026).

“This problem has been exacerbated during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration because there’s a federal government policy of not directly confronting criminal groups,” Eduardo Guerrero, a security consultant, said in 2024, referring to López Obrador’s stated security policy of “hugs, not bullets.” “This causes the expansion of criminal groups into new areas and to colonize these areas and control them,” he added (Save Democracy, 2024). The “hugs, not bullets” security strategy was never defined, though López Obrador claimed to be addressing the root causes of crime through social spending and curbing corruption. Analysts say perceived state passivity gave the green light to criminal groups, though violence overall may have decreased as security forces limited pursuit. “These people have taken the ‘hugs, not bullets’ mantra to heart. They’ve had more freedom and done whatever they wanted,” Bishop Salvador Rangel, a Catholic prelate in oft-violent southern Guerrero state, said in 2024 (López Doriga Digital, 2024).

For his part, López Obrador routinely laughed off, downplayed, or deflected talk of electoral interference. “Those belonging to organized crime generally behaved well. Very few acts of violence were committed by these groups. I think white-collar criminals behaved worse, but they didn’t cross the line and didn’t fundamentally alter the results,” he said after the 2021 midterms (Magallán, 2021).

López Obrador downplayed security concerns at every turn during his 2018 to 2024 administration. (Claudia Sheinbaum often does the same). He never once had a cross word for drug cartels—though he often scorned the country’s middle classes as “aspirational.” He traveled to Sinaloa multiple times, ostensibly to inspect a highway being built through the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains (Olivares & Sánchez, 2024). He also visited Badiraguato multiple times, the home municipality of now-imprisoned Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. In 2019, he visited the day after El Chapo was convicted on drug and organized crime charges in a New York court, drawing thousands to a rally in the municipal seat (Reuters, 2019). He also infamously broke COVID-19 protocols to embrace El Chapo’s mother, and even sent her letters to U.S. officials, petitioning for permission to visit her son, who is now locked up in a Colorado supermax prison (Cortes & Bustamante, 2020).

He doggedly defended the drug cartels, especially the Sinaloa Cartel. AMLO bitterly complained after the DEA revealed it had infiltrated Los Chapitos, the cartel run by El Chapo’s sons, branding it as “abusive interference” (Camhaji, 2023). He defended Mexican drug cartels after the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, an anti-graft activist and presidential candidate in Ecuador (Presidencia de la República, 2023).

The AMLO Administration limited cooperation with U.S. security services; it passed a law in 2020 forcing the foreign agents, including the DEA, to advise Mexican officials of their movements and to share intelligence (BBC News, 2020). Mexican officials later slow-rolled visas for new DEA agents, according to the then-administrator, Anne Milgram (Díaz Briseño, 2024).

Toward the end of AMLO’s administration, the hashtag #Narcopresidente—used to accuse the president of having drug cartel ties—frequently trended on Mexican social media. ProPublica published an investigation alleging drug traffickers pumped $2 million into López Obrador’s unsuccessful 2006 campaign (Golden, 2024). AMLO denied the accusations and demanded an apology from the Biden Administration. Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador, publicly stated the matter was “closed” (Aristegui Noticias, 2024). AMLO doxxed a New York Times reporter, who sought comment for a story on U.S. officials examining possible links between the president’s confidants and drug cartels (Feuer & Kitroeff, 2024). The investigation was not pursued.

Sheinbaum has been hit by the same #narcopresidenta hashtag, but no evidence of drug cartel ties has surfaced. Accusations against MORENA party members continue, however.

Detained Sinaloa Cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada—who was bundled out of Mexico and taken to the United States in what he claims was a kidnapping—said he was abducted after appearing at a meeting in which he thought he was supposed to mediate a dispute between Sinaloa’s MORENA Governor Rubén Rocha and another politician, who was later found dead that same day (de Cordoba, 2025). Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, MORENA governor of Baja California, said in May 2025 that she and her husband, also a MORENA politician, lost their U.S. visas for unknown reasons (Alvarez & Rios, 2025). The MORENA mayor of Tequila in Jalisco state was arrested in February 2026 for extorting distillers, including industry giants such as José Cuervo (Rodríguez Mega, 2026).

Pressure has mounted on Sheinbaum to hand over narco-politicians to the United States, according to Mexican and international media reports. But Sheinbaum insists the topic never comes up in conversations with Trump. She also has rejected Trump’s offers for the U.S. to take the lead in taking on drug cartels (De Córdoba et al., 2026).

THE BLOODLETTING CONTINUES

Carlos Manzo, the independent mayor of Uruapán, in Michoacán state, was shot dead at a candle lighting ceremony for Day of the Dead on November 1, 2025. Manzo had decried the security situation in Uruapán, a hub of Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar avocado industry and home to dozens of USDA phytosanitary inspectors. He had also pleaded with Sheinbaum to intervene in Uruapán, where he was known to accompany his local police force on patrols (De Córdoba & Pérez, 2025).

Manzo’s murder underscored the cruelty of the infamous narco-maxim: plata o plomo (silver or lead). It also showed the difficulties of confronting drug cartels, which increasingly have targeted lucrative crops such as avocados and limes for extortion—or even humble businesses such as taxi services and tortilla mills—while also carrying out activities such as illegal logging, targeting long-haul truckers, and stealing fuel from Pemex pipelines. Bernardo Bravo, a lime grower in Michoacán, was found murdered shortly before Manzo’s death after he denounced extortion of farmers in the Tierra Caliente region and spoke of the absence of the state (Varela, 2025).

Sheinbaum, like her predecessor, insists that Mexico has become safer since she took office in October 2024. She presented statistics in February 2026 showing a 42% reduction in the homicide rate over the previous 16 months (Embassy of Mexico in the United States, 2026). Like AMLO, she also downplays atrocities as attempts to discredit her government, such as the March 2025 discovery of an extermination camp run by a drug cartel near Guadalajara. “Some people make up a story,” she told the country (Martínez, 2025). She repeatedly blames Calderón and García Luna for ongoing problems, even though both men left office in December 2012.

Critics, however, point to rising disappearances, even as the official homicide rate drops. Mexico registered 70,094 disappearances during the seven years of MORENA governance, compared to the 32,461 disappearances during the 2012–2018 presidency of President Enrique Peña Nieto, according to the government-run National Search Commission (Madrigal, 2026).

Sheinbaum named García Harfuch as her security czar, effectively making him the point person for all matters related to public security and her interlocutor on security issues with the United States. Previously the police chief in Mexico City, he survived a 2020 assassination attempt that he blamed on the CJNG, which killed two bodyguards and a bystander. Sheinbaum boasts a drop in the homicide rate of more than 50% during her nearly five years as Mexico City mayor, just prior to running for president—something she credited to improving police pay and professionalism, along with innovative policing programs and intelligence sharing between agencies. Security analysts express skepticism over the president’s claims in Mexico City; a fact check by Animal Politico showed a tendency to classify violent deaths as “events of undetermined intention” (Maza, 2023).

Consistent with his broader security approach, López Obrador relied heavily on the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) to carry out public security functions, further consolidating the military’s role in civilian law enforcement. He dismantled the Federal Police—a project championed by Calderón and García Luna—after branding it irredeemably corrupt. He formed a new National Guard composed of army and navy personnel, along with Federal Police officers. The former civilians were pushed out in short order, according to security experts, while the new National Guard struggled to re-establish competencies such as intelligence and forensics. AMLO ended his administration by placing the National Guard under SEDENA command. At the same time, he sidelined the navy, which had previously been one of Mexico’s most effective and trusted partners for U.S. security cooperation, particularly with agencies such as the DEA. Taken together, these changes reinforced a security model that prioritized centralized military control over institutional development and international cooperation. Critics argue these trends limited the state’s effectiveness in confronting organized crime.

López Obrador came to rely upon the army as an ally. He called it “The people in uniform,” and claimed it was incorruptible. A notoriously hermetic institution, the army largely stayed out of politics after the Revolution of 1910, but proved unaccountable to civilian authorities. AMLO tasked the army with responsibilities ranging from building and operating airports and railways, to managing national parks, to delivering fuel.

He defended the army, too. SEDENA’s heightened influence was on display after the 2020 arrest of former Defense Secretary General Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States on drug-conspiracy charges (Golden, 2022). Mexico’s military brass lobbied the AMLO Administration for Cienfuegos’s release, and the Mexican government successfully pressured the U.S. government to repatriate Cienfuegos (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020). Then-Attorney General William Barr received assurances that Cienfuegos would be investigated in Mexico, but the general was quickly absolved upon his return (Kitroeff et al., 2021).

AMLO, MORENA, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF MEXICAN POLITICS

Understanding the political project of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is essential to understanding the transformation of Mexico under the current ruling MORENA party. López Obrador, who served as president from 2018 to 2024 and founded MORENA, reshaped Mexico’s political system and continues to influence the country’s direction under his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum.

AMLO grew up as the son of shopkeepers in swampy Tabasco state, the heartland of Mexico’s oil industry, at a time when petroleum riches were considered a pillar of national development, and state control of the sector through Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) symbolized both sovereignty and self-respect.

He joined the PRI at a young age and took his first job as an apparatchik in the country’s indigenist institute. He left the PRI in the 1980s and participated in left-wing candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’ 1988 presidential campaign, which fell short after a mysterious computer crash in the interior ministry wiped out early results favoring the opposition.

AMLO lost a scandalous 1994 election for governor of Tabasco but moved to Mexico City and became leader of the left-wing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and ultimately won the mayor’s office in 2000. He became popular with the poor for providing seniors with cash stipends and catered to the middle classes by building elevated freeways and a bus-mass transit line.

He ran for president in 2006 on the slogan, “For the good of all, the poor first,” but narrowly lost to Calderón in a race he considered rigged. Former colleagues say the president committed tactical errors as the campaign unfolded. Ads also appeared comparing AMLO to then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and calling the Mexican candidate, “A danger for Mexico.” The Financial Times recently cited Mexican officials from the time saying Venezuela pumped money into AMLO’s first presidential campaign (Webber & Simón, 2026).

He never accepted the results from the autonomous Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), and both he and Sheinbaum still litigate the so-called “fraud” to this day as the foundational myth of MORENA. AMLO toured the country quixotically over the next dozen years, visiting each of Mexico’s more than 2,400 municipalities at least twice. He unsuccessfully ran again for president in 2012 but capitalized in 2018 on widespread discontent over slow growth, low wages, and perceptions of corruption under Peña Nieto. He claimed 53% of the vote and majority in both houses of Congress (Axios, 2018).

AMLO replicated parts of his Mexico City model as president. He introduced cash stipends for seniors, single mothers, and students. He also introduced austerity so severe that Mexico fired bureaucrats, slashed government salaries—including his own—and spent roughly 1% of GDP on the country’s COVID-19 response. But he never spared funds for Pemex, which was heavily indebted, as previous governments depended on oil funds for floating the national budget. Much of his agenda focused on building megaprojects such as a new refinery in Tabasco, railways circling the Yucatán Peninsula and Isthmus of Tehuantepec and new airports in Tulum and suburban Mexico City—after canceling a new airport for the capital, which was already under construction, alleging unproven accusations of corruption (BBC News, 2019).

López Obrador largely went about restoring the model of one-party rule from the PRI days prior to 2000—albeit without many of the institutional characteristics, which prompted Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa to call the party’s governance, “The perfect dictatorship.” He re-centralized power in the executive after decades of power and money flowing to the state level as the country moved away from one-party rule. Power became personalized under López Obrador, critics contended. And he successfully campaigned in favor of his preferred successor, Claudia Sheinbaum—violating rules implemented after his complaints of presidential interference in the close 2006 election (Alín, 2024). He effectively wrote her campaign platform: a suite of constitutional reforms including measures to scrap the country’s version of Freedom of Information and antitrust watchdog, while overhauling the courts to elect all judges, including Supreme Court justices. He placed allies in positions of Sheinbaum’s incoming administration, Congress, and MORENA. All were approved after MORENA won super-majorities in Congress, thanks to a generous interpretation of the rules assigning seats won by a coalition of MORENA and two minor parties.

AMLO focused obsessively on communications. He pontificated for three hours every morning in a press conference known as the “mañanera.” The presser set the news cycle, provided material for teams of pro-government influencers, and sent political and governmental communications to partisans and bureaucrats alike. Bureaucrats have said that decisions were made after hearing the president’s comments in the mañanera, while analysts described the press conference as an exercise in governing in real time. (Sheinbaum holds a shorter version of the mañanera, too.) The press conference spread narratives that stuck in the public consciousness—such as his megaprojects bringing development to southern Mexico, which had been left behind economically with the advent of free trade with the United States. Another promoted his cash stipend schemes as being financed by money previously stolen from sticky-fingered politicians (Agren, 2021).

THE RETURN OF ONE-PARTY RULE

López Obrador routinely castigated opponents, too. AMLO verbally kept the opposition off-balance. He also had the Financial Intelligence Unit—a part of the finance ministry for tracking illicit money and drug cartel finances—pursue political opponents (O’Grady, 2020). MORENA and its allies overwhelmingly won state elections, reflecting AMLO’s popularity and the opposition’s deep unpopularity. But multiple opposition governors were appointed to plum ambassadorial positions after MORENA won control of their states. Analysts described the actions as rewarding passivity, as governors traditionally worked to elect their preferred successors in a system with no reelection at the executive level (Núñez, 2025).

AMLO largely targeted the institutions developed during the democratic transition, which took hold after the contested 1988 election and resulted in the PRI being ousted by Vicente Fox in 2000. He railed endlessly against the National Electoral Institute (INE), which, as the IFE in 2006, oversaw his first unsuccessful presidential run (Rojas Gómez, 2023). He blasted the transparency institute as “neoliberal,” even though it uncovered graft that ultimately supported his election. And he complained constantly about the “neoliberal period,” which coincided with the opening of Mexico’s economy and the democratic transition. Analysts posit AMLO’s self-aggrandizement led him and many in the PRD—which he belonged to until founding MORENA in 2011—to believe that democracy would only arrive in Mexico when the left took office.

FROM NAFTA SKEPTIC TO USMCA SUPPORTER

López Obrador ran for president in 2006 as a NAFTA skeptic, promising to re-negotiate the deal’s agricultural chapters (Krauze, 2006). The stance fit with his pledge of putting the poor first, as NAFTA was blamed for pushing peasant farmers off their small plots. But his underlying skepticism fit with his stated opposition to “neoliberalism,” which in Mexico came to be understood as economic opening, market liberalization, and the democratic transition starting in the early 1980s and ending with his capturing the presidency in 2018. The period began with the economic crisis in the 1980s, following profligate spending in the previous decade, a botched banking nationalization, and soaring inflation. Mexico was also capital poor, while its closed economy was sputtering after decades of 6% annual growth following World War II—a period remembered fondly as “The Mexican Miracle.” The opening started in 1986, when Mexico entered the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, under President Miguel de la Madrid (Infobae, 2012).

Mexican President Carlos Salinas and President George H.W. Bush started negotiating a free trade agreement shortly after both leaders took office in late 1988 and early 1989, respectively. Canada, which already had a free trade deal with the United States, joined the talks, making it a North American deal.

EXPLOSIVE ENACTMENT, GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE

NAFTA came into effect on January 1, 1994. The indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation staged an uprising in Chiapas the same day, seizing control of several cities (Golden, 1994). The Zapatistas became darlings of the anti-globalization movement with leftists trekking to closed communities in Chiapas and imbibing rambling communiques from its pipe-smoking spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos. The Zapatistas staged a mass demonstration in central Mexico City in 2001 after years of resisting the Mexican military (Thompson & Weiner, 2001). Its star then faded, and with it, resistance to NAFTA, which drew protests from campesino (peasant farmer) groups, but little widespread opposition movement.

Analysts posit several reasons for NAFTA opposition withering with the passage of time. Prices dropped in Mexico as competition increased and the selection of consumer goods of better quality increased. Economists speak of the “Walmart effect,” as the Arkansas-based retailer drove down prices and helped curb inflation after entering Mexico with a single Sam’s Club outlet in 1991 (Agren, 2017). Lawmakers have stayed mum on openly criticizing NAFTA and the USMCA in order not to scare off foreign investment. And though GDP growth has not been spectacular —just 2.3% annually between 1982 and 2018, according to the Business Coordination Council—the economy remained relatively stable without catastrophic internal shocks (spare the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19) since the so-called Tequila Crisis of 1994, when the peso crashed (Hernández, 2026). Some states boomed, especially in the Bajío region of west-central Mexico, as auto plants moved in (Partlow & Agren, 2017).

THE “NEOLIBERAL PERIOD”

AMLO started his successful 2018 campaign by expressing skepticism for free trade. “If it were certain that [NAFTA] only benefitted Mexico, our economy wouldn’t stay stuck and there wouldn’t be immigration,” he said in Ciudad Juárez (López Obrador, 2018). He campaigned against what he called the “neoliberal nightmare.” But AMLO blessed the USMCA deal signed by Peña Nieto on the outgoing president’s last day in office, effectively continuing the neoliberal period’s main accomplishment: continental free trade.

López Obrador had long railed against “neoliberalism.” He bitterly objected to the haphazard privatizations carried out under Salinas, though he forced a productive relationship over the years with telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim, who turned the Telmex telephone monopoly into the world’s largest private fortune for a time (Harris, 2010). An ill-conceived privatization of banks required a bailout known as FOBAPROA—an act AMLO and Sheinbaum still condemn three decades later, and which he used as justification for not extending aid to businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. He especially objected to a suite of structural reforms ushered in by Peña Nieto—achieved with a cross-party consensus shortly after becoming president in 2012—to the economy in areas ranging from public finances to competition law, to telecoms. He especially objected to the energy reform, which facilitated private and foreign investment in the petroleum and electricity sector, branding the opening as “treason” (Americas Society/Council of the Americas, 2013).

Wages also remained stubbornly low, while critics contended that inequality had exploded during the free-trade era (Gómez Mena, 2018). Analysts point to the rise of China as a factor in Mexico failing to reap the full benefits of NAFTA—specifically the Clinton Administration’s decision to support China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. China’s share of imports climbed from 12% to 42.1% between 2000 and 2010, while Mexican imports dropped from 13.22% to 6.51%, according to a study from Boston University (Dussel Peters & Gallagher, 2013). AMLO initially objected to the displacement of campesinos from the corn-farming plots after NAFTA’s implementation, but Mexican agriculture flourished with the country exporting everything from avocado to tomatoes to berries to the vast U.S. market (López et al., 2022).

RESUMPTION OF STATE ROLE IN ECONOMY

Mexico’s private sector also flourished under NAFTA—a reversal from the prior years of the state taking the lead in economic planning. One of AMLO’s first acts as president was to cancel the construction of the partially completed New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) on the dried-up Lake Texcoco. Analysts say AMLO sent the private sector a message: “I’m in control,” even though users at the existing Benito Juárez Mexico City International Airport paid a passenger tax for compensating bondholders of the new airport that would never be completed (Ríos, 2021).

AMLO promoted mega-projects of questionable economic utility, such as the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, built on an existing military base north of Mexico City as an alternative to the canceled NAICM. But he mostly focused on projects in southern Mexico, such as a massive refinery in Tabasco state; the Tren Maya, which circles the ecologically sensitive Yucatán Peninsula; and the Interoceanic Corridor, which traverses the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec and could be promoted as an alternative to the Panama Canal (Brown, 2024). The projects, like many of AMLO’s actions, promoted a larger narrative of the president investing in southern Mexico, which long felt aggrieved that NAFTA attracted investments to central and northern Mexico—which aesthetically began resembling booming Texas cities—while the southern states remained stuck in economic stagnation and developmentally similar to Central America.

U.S. products enjoyed popularity in Mexico. Walmart became Mexico’s biggest retailer, with shops catering to all income levels. Even BBQ joints became popular, and NFL football drew massive fan interest and TV ratings. Trump’s rough rhetoric toward Mexico in 2015 generated talk of boycotting U.S. firms such as Starbucks, but failed to materialize. The idle chatter of Mexico pursuing closer ties with Latin America as a replacement for the United States had fizzled as geography kept the country firmly in the American orbit and economic influence (Grillo, 2017). Anti-Trump marches drew few people, with Mexicans more vigorously protesting domestic priorities such as rising fuel prices and their own unpopular president.

BAD FOR BUSINESS?

AMLO supported signing the USMCA, but he did little to promote investment in Mexico as president. AMLO insists the middle and upper classes prospered during his administration. He did not raise taxes during his six years in office, he promoted fiscal austerity until his final years (when he spent lavishly on cash stipends ahead of the 2024 election, straining the federal budget), and he respected the central bank’s autonomy. But an early hypothesis for business survival in the AMLO era emerged: stay out of the way of his prestige megaprojects, such as the Tren Maya, along with his plans for Pemex and the state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

The Mexican government handed operational control of the offshore Zama oil reserve to Pemex in 2021, despite joint-development partner Houston-based Talos Energy, Inc., having made the discovery, investing heavily, and leading a consortium with better expertise (Harrup, 2021). The United States and Canada accused Mexico of falling short of its USMCA obligations by preferring the CFE and Pemex, therefore harming investors in the energy sector—especially those investing in clean energy projects. The two countries requested consultations on the matter, which could have led to a dispute settlement panel. Sources say Mexico’s economy secretariat slow-rolled the complaints, which were unresolved when AMLO left office in September 2024 (Office of the United States Trade Representative, 2022).

Alabama-based Vulcan Materials came into conflict with AMLO over the use of a private port serving its long-established limestone quarry near Playa del Carmen. AMLO began accusing the company of damaging ecologically sensitive terrain—just as he was coming under criticism for building the Tren Maya, which critics showed was damaging cenotes (underground caves and water systems) and pushing through virgin rainforest (Abi-Habib, 2022). Mexican security forces later took over the port, allowing cement giant Cemex (who said it had an agreement with Vulcan Materials) to use the facility (Morland, 2023). AMLO eventually declared the Vulcan Materials site a natural protected area—an act the company considers expropriation, as compensation failed to match the quarry’s value (Mexico News Daily, 2025).

AMLO opened the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) north of Mexico City in 2022. Airlines were slow to start service at the facility, some 30 miles from the center of the national capital. In 2022, AMLO ordered airlines to move cargo operations to the new airport from the existing Mexico City international airport. The decision forced airlines to serve at two airports. In October 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the cancellation of 13 routes between AIFA and the United States, saying the cargo decision “left American businesses holding the bag for millions in increased costs” (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2025).

JUDICIAL AND TAX UNCERTAINTY

López Obrador ended his administration by pushing a judicial overhaul through Congress, with MORENA flipping an opposition senator through threats of corruption charges to get the necessary votes (La Política Online, 2024). The so-called judicial reform put all judges, including Supreme Court justices, to a popular vote in 2025 and 2027. The changes weakened the requisites for judicial candidates and created an elected oversight body to discipline judges and, according to legal scholars, act as an instrument of political control.

The president appointed four justices to the Supreme Court during his mandate, but he disparaged the court for granting injunctions against his megaprojects. He opposed the selection of Norma Piña as court president, and his partisans considered her not standing and applauding the president at a public event to be an affront (La Política Online, 2023). One of his appointments, Lenía Batres, supported the judicial overhaul, echoing AMLO’s anger at the court stopping his prestige projects and saying in an interview: “While one branch is thinking about building infrastructure, the other is sabotaging it” (Romero & Villegas, 2024).

Mexico’s recent judicial reforms have raised concerns about the politicization and weakening of judicial independence. The first judicial election occurred in June 2025, and commentators described the process as “Kafkaesque,” as thousands of candidates competed in an election with low-name recognition. Candidates with criminal histories, alleged drug cartel ties, and pasts as drug cartel lawyers were among those vying for spots on the bench (Villegas & Rodríguez Mega, 2025; Murray, 2025). Voters showed a crushing disinterest in the process as turnout was just 13%, casting doubt on AMLO’s claim that the people wanted to pick their own judges. Campaign rules prohibited parties from promoting candidates, but MORENA operatives distributed cheat sheets that were used by voters, including AMLO (Grupo Reforma, 2025). The successful candidates for the Supreme Court and oversight body all had ties to MORENA or histories with AMLO.

TAX UNCERTAINTY

AMLO has boasted of not raising taxes in Mexico or carrying out a fiscal reform that would broaden the tax base. Analysts posit that AMLO and his successor have preferred not to tax the more than 50% of Mexicans working in the informal economy, who comprise a large part of the MORENA base. AMLO instead focused on tax collection from existing taxpayers, with the country’s revenue agency targeting big companies such as Walmart (El Financiero, 2025).

Tax uncertainty has become a constant in recent years for foreign investors in Mexico. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed the investors in the country’s manufacturing sector—operating under the Industria Manufacturera, Maquiladora y de Servicios de Exportación scheme, which allows for value-added tax (VAT) to be exempted on imported inputs if the finished products are exported—reporting double VAT taxation, repeated auditing, and refund requests being regularly rejected. “Long audits, retroactive claims, and uncertain resolution timelines create an environment in which compliance today does not guarantee certainty tomorrow. The risks compound after Mexico’s recent judicial overhaul,” the authors wrote. “Nearshoring alone, at least not at current levels, is insufficient to deliver sustained growth without investment certainty” (Marroquín & Berg, 2026).

CHINA THREAT AND THE NEARSHORING MIRAGE

Sheinbaum assumed office with the prospect of nearshoring on the horizon as companies de-risked by shifting production and supply chains from China to North America. Signs of nearshoring have emerged in northern Nuevo León state, where Asian investment, including a large Chinese industrial park—hoping to access the U.S. market under USMCA rules—has been robust (Murray, 2023). The incoming president spoke of Mexico taking advantage of nearshoring, which depended on the USMCA remaining intact. But Trump’s tariffs and the prospect of an unfavorable USMCA review have limited talk of nearshoring. The Mexican president, however, has pursued economic policies to placate the Trump Administration. Mexico implemented tariffs on countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement—a measure aimed at curbing Chinese imports, as the country had become one of China’s fastest-growing EV markets (Lo, 2026). Chinese manufacturer BYD suspended nascent plans for building a Mexican factory, but Reuters reported in February 2026 that both BYD and Geely, another Chinese EV manufacturer, were bidding for an auto factory being closed by Nissan in Aguascalientes state (Green, 2026).

Sheinbaum announced a wide-ranging industrial policy known as “Plan México” early in her administration. The policy outlined ambitious goals for increasing domestic content in Mexican manufacturing—especially in automotive and electronics—while increasing foreign direct investment to $100 billion by 2030 (López, 2025).

SUPPORTING LATIN AMERICAN LEFTISTS

Mexico has increasingly cooperated with the United States on security matters under Sheinbaum. Her administration has also pursued closer ties with Trump on other matters, including through concessions on foreign policy. She announced in February 2026 that Mexico would not join the U.S. president’s Board of Peace but would participate as an observer (Díaz Briseño, 2026). Sheinbaum also stopped shipping oil to Cuba after pressure from the Trump Administration, despite Mexico being the communist island’s main petroleum supplier (Reuters, 2026).

Sheinbaum later sent two navy ships with 800 tons of “humanitarian assistance” for Cuba after halting oil exports (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2026). Mexico’s support for Cuba dates back decades, when the country recognized the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro that seized power in 1959, a time when other Latin American governments refused to do so. The act established a pattern in which Mexico would recognize radicals in other countries (such as Cuba) so long as revolution was not imported into Mexico. And Mexico continued quietly cooperating with the United States. Mexico also established the Estrada Doctrine, in which the country’s government refrains from meddling in or commenting on the internal affairs of other nations, while expecting the same treatment in return (Salisbury, n.d.). AMLO, who seldom traveled abroad and showed little interest in foreign affairs prior to taking office, often spoke of non-intervention during his news conference soliloquies on the United States.

However, AMLO often intervened in other countries’ affairs—including the United States, where he often badmouthed Republican governors for immigration and border bills. He especially intervened in Latin America on the side of leftist fellow travelers, especially those at odds with the United States. AMLO meddled in Bolivia in 2019 after protests forced then-President Evo Morales to resign after he rigged an election. AMLO dispatched a military aircraft to fetch Morales and granted him asylum (Associated Press, 2019). AMLO supported Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who was sacked after carrying out a “self-coup” by trying to close Congress (Quesada & Santaeulalia, 2022). Mexico granted asylum to former Ecuadorian vice-president Jorge Glas, who was wanted on corruption charges and accused of narcotics-trafficking ties. Ecuadorian soldiers entered the Mexican Embassy in Quito to grab Glas, triggering a diplomatic scandal and severing of relations (BBC News, 2024). Operators linked to former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa—currently living in Belgium as a fugitive—have forged close ties with MORENA and have occupied positions in MORENA governments (Buendía, 2023).

RUSSIAN ESPIONAGE?

AMLO invited Russian, Chinese, and Venezuelan troops to march past the National Palace in Mexico’s 2023 military parade (Associated Press, 2023). Russia, meanwhile, markedly increased its accredited diplomats at its embassy in Mexico City from 49 (prior to its 2022 invasion of Ukraine) to 85—likely engaging in espionage, according to journalist Dolia Estévez (Estévez, 2023). The New York Times later reported that many of the Russian diplomats and spies expelled by the United States and its allies ended up in Mexico. Mexican officials brushed off U.S. officials when warned of rising Russian espionage (Abi-Habib, 2025).

Sheinbaum continued AMLO’s meddling ways. Peru severed relations with Mexico after the country tried offering asylum to former prime minister Betssy Chávez, who was criminally accused of helping with Castillo’s self-coup (Yang, 2025). Mexico did not congratulate center-right candidate Rodrigo Paz after his 2025 election win in Bolivia amid a crushing economic crisis. But she regretted the Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party being annihilated amid deep divisions—a situation she warned her own MORENA party to avoid (La Política Online, 2025). She expressed dismay with the U.S. ousting Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, citing non-intervention. “The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: intervention has never brought democracy; it has never generated well-being or lasting stability” (Linthicum, 2026).

CONCLUSION

The United States should pursue a “grand bargain” framework in the USMCA review—granting continued open market access in exchange for concrete, verifiable commitments from Mexico.

The 2026 USMCA review provides an opportunity for the United States to pursue its national interests in Mexico. It also offers the rare chance for striking a grand bargain: Mexico can continue to receive open market access to the world’s largest economy, provided they become a true partner on security, migration enforcement, and drug interdiction, while they turn its foreign policy from rhetorically hostile to U.S. involvement in Latin America to an ally, or something better resembling its stated interest of non-intervention.

U.S. administrations have often failed to recognize the leverage they hold in the bilateral relationship and have preferred to be “good neighbors” rather than pursue the U.S. national interest. That national interest includes a prosperous, secure, and stable southern neighbor, which acts in accordance with U.S. interests, rather than coexisting with criminal groups, only cooperating with the United States when pressured, and finding common cause with U.S. adversaries.

Mexico covets open market access to the U.S. market for its exports, and successive Mexican administrations, including the ostensibly leftist MORENA regime, have demonstrated a willingness to acquiesce to U.S. demands to maintain that access.

U.S. negotiators must present Mexico with a grand bargain: one that says commitments to combat drug cartels (with complete U.S. cooperation), to purge politicians acting in collusion with criminal groups, and to abandon anti-American allies hindering Trump’s attempts at establishing U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere are part of the conditions for continuing to receive open market access to the U.S. economy and other privileges within the USMCA. The USMCA is a commercial agreement, which, along with NAFTA, has brought untold benefits to Mexico.

Mexico has become a manufacturing powerhouse through its access to U.S. markets, in addition to becoming an important piece of U.S. supply chains. But the USMCA’s continuance must be linked to non-commercial factors. The U.S. national interest demands it. U.S. security requires it. And Mexico itself demands it if the country is to ever become a stable, reliable, and secure neighbor.