North American politics

The prospect of a Trump presidency looms over Mexico’s elections

Rows over drugs, migration and trade threaten to harm relations

Every 12 years the electoral cycles of Mexico (six-year presidential terms) and
the United States (four-year terms) align. The last time, in 2012, few took
notice; neither Barack Obama nor his running-mate Joe Biden mentioned
Mexico during their televised debates.

Things will be different this year. Donald Trump, the likely Republican
nominee, is a relentless Mexico-basher. The Mexican frontrunner, Claudia
Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena party, is a protegée of the populist incumbent,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mexico figures prominently in its northern
neighbour’s most divisive debates. Border crossings are at record levels,
placing Mr Biden under pressure. The volume of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic
opioid, seized at the United States border is rising fast. On a less contentious
matter, the United States is looking to Mexico to host supply chains which used
to pass through China.

Political observers expect election-year rhetoric to be hotter than usual. There is

little love lost between Mexicans and the Republicans. Rather than a mere
“political piñata”, Mexico is sometimes seen as “the enemy and a real threat
to us national security”, says Rafael Fernández de Castro of the University of
California at San Diego’s Centre for us-Mexican studies. Research by YouGov, a
pollster, bears this out. Almost half of Republicans now see Mexico as an enemy,
rather than an ally.

Mr Biden’s presidency has improved Mexican views of the United States. Almost
two-thirds of Mexicans now have a favourable opinion of their neighbour, says
the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank. At the nadir of Mr Trump’s presidency,
just 30% of Mexicans felt that way.

The debate in the United States on immigration policy may revive those
tensions. Mr Trump has promised the “largest domestic deportation operation
in American history”. That would upend the lives of many members of the
Mexican diaspora by returning them to a country in which they have not set foot
in years.
Mexican officials fret that Mr Trump as president would reinstate the “Remain
in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum-seekers hoping to enter the United
States to wait in Mexico. He may also push Mexico to accept status as a safe
country to which asylum-seekers may be returned, something it has resisted.
Mexico would then be more heavily burdened by in-limbo migrants than it is
today.

The drugs trade breeds its own cross-border controversy. At least 80,000
people in the United States died of an opioid overdose in the 12 months to
August 2023. Most of them had ingested fentanyl, much of it smuggled into the
country across its southern border. When Mr Trump first mulled firing missiles
into Mexico to disrupt the drugs trade in 2020, it seemed an isolated madcap
notion. Now the idea of using force is widespread. Candidates for the
Republican nomination, as well as members of Congress, have advocated
sending special-operations troops into Mexico to go after the drug gangs.

Bilateral trade has not yet become a campaign issue. Louise Blais, a Canadian
former ambassador, says she expects the United States-Mexico-Canada
Agreement (usmca) which replaced nafta to be extended when it comes up for
discussion in 2026. “It’s a no-brainer,” she says. The United States needs
Mexico as it seeks regional investment to bring supply chains closer. Mexico
recently overtook China to become the United States’ top source of imports.

Ms Blais’s confidence is well placed, if Mr Biden wins. But the growth of imports
from Mexico has exacerbated the kind of trade imbalance that Mr Trump
abhors. The latest government data suggest that the United States imported
goods from Mexico worth about $150bn more than those it exported to the
country in 2023.

Just because Mr Trump signed the usmca doesn’t mean he won’t rip it up or
change it, warns one Mexican official. As president Mr Trump did not hesitate
to use trade threats to press Mexico to do his bidding on migration. He talks of a
10% import tariff on all goods from all countries. That would breach usmca or
require it to be scrapped. Mr Trump’s victory would herald a return to a
transactional relationship, says Andrew Rudman of the Wilson Centre, a think-
tank in Washington.
The presidential race in the United States casts a long shadow, but the outcome
of the Mexican election matters too. The winner will take office on October 1st, a
few months before her American counterpart. It is almost certain to be Ms
Sheinbaum. Her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, a former senator who leads a
coalition of established parties, is behind in the polls.

Both talk sensibly about bringing more supply chains to Mexico. Mr López
Obrador has failed to make the most of the opportunity, in part because his
state-first, fossil-fuel-powered energy policy has inhibited investment. Both
candidates say they will pursue a transition to clean power. Mexico’s co-
operation on migration is likely to continue under either leader, though the
political costs are rising in step with the number of migrants. Neither has yet
said much about how they might go about curbing fentanyl production.

Still, it is the prospect of Mr Trump’s return that animates Arturo Sarukhán, a

former Mexican ambassador to Washington. He worries that Mr Trump, more
than Mr Biden, would happily turn a blind eye to any further erosion of
democracy in Mexico. That might happen alongside the degradation of the
bilateral relationship. The question is whether the deterioration will be confined
to this dual-election year, or be the new norm for the next four.■