How Sheinbaum can strengthen US-Mexico ties in Trump’s first 100 days

What will the US-Mexico relationship look like in 2025? As he takes office, President-elect Donald Trump’s priorities and initial decisions could have profound impacts on the agendas for the two countries and on the wider region, including in the critical areas of security, migration, trade, and economic investment. But how Mexico reacts to the incoming US administration’s policies can also increase or constrain the expected results of Trump’s strategies.

So far, Trump’s foreign policy appointments have sent a clear message to Mexico. Security and the fight against fentanyl will be at the center of the Trump administration’s efforts. The challenge for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and her administration is to articulate a response not only to security pressures but also to the economic implications of tariffs that could be immediately imposed.

In the year ahead, Mexico will have to manage several fronts of domestic policy and negotiations with the United States at the same time. Since coming to office in October 2024, Sheinbaum has taken several steps on security and trade that should help smooth relations with the incoming Trump administration. But the challenges during Trump’s first one hundred days in office will require more profound efforts to rebuild and strengthen US-Mexico ties for the years to come.

National security

The changes and innovations that Sheinbaum is implementing on security are already palpable. This includes institutional reforms to reinforce the Federal Secretariat of Security. These reforms are expanding its intelligence and investigation capabilities to prioritize the use of technology and data. The goal is to use these new capabilities to develop more effective strategies against criminal organizations in Mexico. A few weeks after this reform began, and also a few days after the first call between Trump and Sheinbaum, Mexican authorities carried out the largest fentanyl seizure in the country’s history, confiscating over a ton of pills in Sinaloa.

But those initiatives alone might not be enough for Trump. Besides concrete results and sustained efforts, it will likely take more persuasive strategies and greater evidence of crime reduction to convince him of Mexico’s commitment to binational security. This will be difficult to achieve, as the past several years have seen increasing mistrust and decreasing cooperation between the United States and Mexico. International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement aid to Mexico, for example, has been significantly reduced.

The challenge for Mexico is to recover trust and propose new cooperation frameworks to avoid US unilateral action against crime. Mexican authorities clearly understand the significant risks of a potential intensification of the US unilateral approach. One recent case is the spiral of violence generated after the arrest in El Paso, Texas, of Sinaloa cartel leaders in July 2024. The lack of US coordination and communication with the Mexican agencies to accomplish this capture highlights the difficult hurdles that must be overcome to restore US-Mexican cooperation on transnational crime.

As Trump has maintained his stated willingness to use US military forces to strike Mexican cartels, the risks that US unilateral action poses to the bilateral relationship are even higher. Such measures, without appropriate coordination with Mexican authorities, could lead to more instability and violence throughout Mexico, creating even more distance and mistrust. However, such measures from the United States may not be avoided if Mexico does not develop new policy frameworks to cooperate with Washington on security. 

During the following one hundred days and beyond, Sheinbaum must continue her effort to innovate and improve Mexico’s security policies. But just as urgent for her administration is the need to rebuild trust and cooperation with US security agencies to ensure that unilateral US action does not upend her initiatives. 

Trade cooperation

In 2023, Mexico was the United States’ main commercial partner, and data suggest that Mexico maintained this position during 2024. In 2023, Mexican exports to the US market totaled $475 billion, surpassing China’s exports, which amounted to $427 billion. There are several factors behind Mexico’s recent strong trade numbers with the United States, including US tariffs on China and Mexico’s preferential status under the USMCA. But another important factor is the high level of diversification in the Mexican economy. This diversification is the greatest in Latin America and is based on the export of manufactures and successful industries, such as the automobile sector.

This diversification is a major strength of Mexico’s economy, which helps it attract foreign direct investment. It also creates opportunities to accelerate growth benefiting from an increase in “nearshoring,” as an Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center report highlighted in September. The capacity of Mexican economic structures to break the patterns of the commodity trap is attractive to foreign investors looking to concentrate on high-value-added production chains. At the same time, foreign investment increases the diversification of exports and the integration into North American markets, creating a virtuous cycle.

However, international and domestic factors could affect growth perspectives. Internationally, the imposition of US tariffs would considerably reduce the benefits of the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which began during the first Trump administration. New US tariffs could generate significant economic disruptions in employment, supply chains, and consumer prices. Domestically, several institutional changes in Mexico, such as the reform to the judiciary, have triggered uncertainty, worsening the government’s debt outlook.

Faced with these challenges, Sheinbaum’s economic strategy has been to reinforce collaboration with the private sector. On January 13, she officially launched the Mexico Plan, which is intended to strengthen industrial development policies and economic decoupling from China in coordination with business leaders and organizations. 

Although these efforts point toward a promising direction and could help its relations with the United States, it is uncertain whether the Mexican government will be able to quickly and successfully implement these proposed policies. This is a key question considering that in the next one hundred days, Trump will likely increase pressure to achieve rapid results, particularly regarding Mexico’s efforts to decrease its dependence on China and increase its capacity to stop Chinese products from flooding its markets to then make their way into the rest of North America duty-free.

With Trump poised to take office once again, it is a pivotal moment for the US-Mexico relationship. Decisions taken in the following months will shape the two nations’ bilateral ties for years to come. Sheinbaum has taken initiatives on security and trade that will help her navigate the new US-Mexico landscape, but her administration will need to take more decisive steps to increase bilateral trust. Proactive engagement between her government and the incoming Trump administration will be key to opening new avenues for mutual economic prosperity and binational security.


Rene Dominguez Castro is assistant director for Mexico, at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and a former senior advisor in the Federal Government of Mexico.

Further reading

Image: Claudia Sheinbaum Briefing Conference Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico s president, speaks during the national security report at the briefing conference at the National Palace. on December 3, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico. Mexico City CDMX Mexico Copyright: xCarlosxSantiagox