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Mexico blinks, sending 10K troops to U.S. border in exchange for pause in Trump's tariffs

Mexico blinks, sending 10K troops to U.S. border in exchange for pause in Trump's tariffs

Associated Press
Feb 03, 2025

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum

Mexico blinks, sending 10K troops to U.S. border in exchange for pause in Trump's tariffs

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that their planned tariffs were on hold for a month to give time for further negotiations, and Mexico said it planned to deploy 10,000 members of its national guard to address drug trafficking.

Robert Knight, a conservative columnist for The Washington Times, offered some remarks about the response of the Mexican government to Trump's tariff threat.

Robert Knight Knight

"It's amazing what a little strong leadership will do," he tells AFN. "Mexico for years has abused the United States by allowing fentanyl and millions of illegal immigrants to go across our border. All of a sudden now they're going to send troops to deal with these drug cartels that have made the border an open war zone full of terrible atrocities against lots of innocent people."

Mexico, he argues, is taking this action to forestall the U.S. from doing something about the cartels.

"President Trump has declared that there's an invasion at the border and designated the cartels as terrorist groups – and that leaves him with some options. I think Mexico wants to forestall the United States saying Look, if you don't clean it up, we're going to have to do something."

The two leaders announced the move after what Trump described on social media as a “very friendly conversation,” and he said he looked forward to the upcoming talks.

Trump said the talks would be headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and high-level representatives of Mexico.

“I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two Countries,” the president said.

As a condition ahead of the talks, Sheinbaum laid out changes in border policies, and Trump confirmed Mexico's deployment of troops.

“Mexico will reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to stop drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, in particular fentanyl," Sheinbaum posted on X. “The United States commits to work to stop the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico."

The pause added to the drama as Trump's tariffs against Canada and China were still slated to go into effect Tuesday. Trump posted earlier on social media that he spoke Monday morning with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and would speak with him again at 3 p.m.