US President Donald Trump has delayed introducing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico for a month while the two countries hold “negotiations”.
Trump said he would “immediately pause the anticipated tariffs”, which were due to come into force on Tuesday.
The last-minute breakthrough came after a phone call between Trump and President Claudia Sheinbaum, in which the Mexican leader agreed to send 10,000 members of the National Guard to the US-Mexican border to “prevent the trafficking of drugs, in particular fentanyl, from Mexico to the US”.
President Sheinbaum said the US had in turn agreed to increase measures to prevent the trafficking of high-powered US weapons into Mexico.
Sheinbaum broke the news on X, writing she had had a “good conversation with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty” with her US counterpart, which she said had led to the tariffs being put on hold for a month.
The White House had said earlier that President Trump’s “bold action” was to hold Mexico – as well as China and Canada, whom he has also threatened with tariffs – “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country”.
As well as reinforcing Mexico’s northern border, and a commitment by the US that it would “work towards” curbing the flow of weapons to Mexico, Sheinbaum wrote the two countries would start work “today” to reach a deal on “security and trade”.
Trump confirmed the pause shortly afterwards, describing his telephone conversation with Sheinbaum as “very friendly”.
The tone is markedly different from the one in recent days when Trump accused the Mexican government of having an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking gangs.
While Sheinbaum had angrily denounced the allegation as “slander”, she also insisted “problems are not solved by imposing tariffs, but by talking”.
That strategy seems to have yielded some results and while the threat of US tariffs has not gone away completely, the Mexican leader has gained some breathing space and for now avoided a trade war between the two countries.
The “Plan B” of retaliatory measures the Mexican leader had instructed her economy minister to prepare should US tariffs come into force has been shelved for now.
Sheinbaum appeared both relieved and upbeat during Monday’s morning news conference, where her words of “well, you will have seen my tweet” were met with applause by the assembled media.
She also laughed as she told reporters that when President Trump had asked her how long they should pause the tariffs for, she had answered “forever”.
While the US president did not agree to take the threat of tariffs off the table for good, Sheinbaum said she was confident “during this month we’ll be able to deliver good results for his people and the people of Mexico”.
During her news conference, she stressed the two countries’ shared aims, which she said were to crack down on drug trafficking from Mexico to the US and to protect their mutual border.
She also welcomed what she said had been a commitment by the US to do more to stem the trafficking of high-powered weapons from the US to Mexico.
“Rocket launchers come here from the US,” she told reporters, insisting it was in the interest of both nations to stop providing drug cartels with firepower.
She insisted it was in Mexico’s interest to combat the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times stronger than heroin that is linked to tens of thousands of overdoses in the US.
Sheinbaum pointed out the deployment of 10,000 members of the National Guard to the US border would “help Mexico” increase its security.
Border security and stemming the flow of undocumented migrants was one of the key issues in President Trump’s campaign and since coming to office he has argued voters “gave him a mandate to seal the border”.
By BBC News
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