By Mary Beth Sheridan · The Washington Post (c) 2025
MEXICO CITY – In a dramatic, last-minute move, the Trump administration agreed Monday to pause sweeping tariffs on Mexico for a month while the two sides hammer out an agreement on security and trade, the U.S. and Mexican leaders announced.
President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X that in a “good conversation” with President Donald Trump, Mexico committed to rushing 10,000 national guard troops to its border to try to block the flow of drugs into the United States – especially fentanyl.
The United States pledged to work to avoid the illegal trafficking of weapons to Mexico, she said. Trump confirmed the agreement, saying in a post on his Truth Social platform that the deployment of Mexican troops “will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country.”
Sheinbaum spoke two days after Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, saying they have failed to stop the movement of illegal fentanyl and migrants over the U.S. border. The tariffs were set to go into effect Tuesday.
The tariffs had threatened to blow up one of the world’s most important trade accords, raise prices in the United States and push Mexico into recession. Roughly $1.5 million in goods cross the two nations’ border every minute.
Sheinbaum told reporters that she had reached out to the U.S. president Friday, but they were only able to speak this morning. During the call – which lasted about 45 minutes – she proposed suspending the tariffs while the two sides worked out an agreement on security and trade, the Mexican leader told a news conference. Trump asked how long she wanted to hold off on the tariffs.
“I said, ‘Let’s pause them forever,’ ” she told reporters, laughing. When he repeated the question, she agreed to a month-long delay. “I’m sure, in a month, we can provide results,” she told the news conference.
The United States and Mexico are each other’s biggest trading partners, and Mexico is particularly dependent on income from cross-border commerce: More than 80 percent of its exports go to the United States. If the tariffs persisted for months, economists say, Mexico would almost certainly suffer a recession.
In imposing the tariffs, Trump had singled out his concern over the smuggling of fentanyl over the border. The highly addictive opioid has killed tens of thousands of Americans in recent years. U.S. authorities say Mexican cartels manufacture the drug, using chemicals imported from China and other countries.
It’s unclear how much the additional Mexican troops can do to halt the trafficking of the drug, which is difficult to detect. Unlike heroin, cocaine or marijuana, it is highly compact. It is generally produced in small, informal laboratories, some of them in apartment buildings.
In announcing the tariffs Saturday, the White House alleged that drug trafficking organizations had an “intolerable alliance” with the Mexican government. It accused Mexican authorities of granting “safe havens” to the crime groups. Sheinbaum has angrily rejected such claims.
Since coming under pressure from the Biden administration a year ago, Mexico has sharply restricted the movement of U.S.-bound migrants. Mexican security forces detained more than 1 million migrants last year, sending many back to the southern part of the country in a practice known as the “merry-go-round.” That helped drive down border arrests by more than 70 percent.
Mexico has also agreed to Trump’s decision to resume the “Wait in Mexico” program, which requires asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their cases make their way through U.S. courts. Trump started the program in his first term but it was suspended by Biden.
Cooperation on fentanyl has been less robust. However, in recent weeks, Mexican authorities have seized more than a ton of the deadly opioid.