Friend, Neighbor, Military Target

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2025/12/mexico-claudia-sheinbaum-trump/685397/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

Posted by theatlantic

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  1. Nick Miroff: “Trump’s invocation of war and his revival of a medal from a long-buried era of American military intervention in Mexico leave Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in a bind. She has to appease Trump enough to avoid air strikes while firmly standing up for Mexican sovereignty and maintaining her own domestic political support. Now in the second year of her six-year term, she has won widespread praise at home for her coolheaded handling of Trump so far: She has kept trade flowing and tariffs manageable while defusing calls for air strikes on Mexico from MAGA elements who view the country as more of an enemy than an ally. Whether Sheinbaum can hold that balance under increased pressure from the White House will be her key challenge for 2026. [https://theatln.tc/NDyovCuD](https://theatln.tc/NDyovCuD)

    “I traveled to Mexico City this month and spoke with members of Sheinbaum’s administration, who view the coming year with trepidation. Mexico is preparing to co-host the FIFA World Cup with the United States and Canada at the same time that the three countries are conducting a formal review of the United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement, reached seven years ago after Trump ripped up its predecessor, NAFTA. Security coordination for the tournament has put more attention on Mexico’s crime problems amid the trade negotiations.

    “‘We have a president on the Mexican side who is more interested, much more interested, in cooperating than her predecessor was,’ Roberta Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, told me, referring to former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. ‘I think she has done an amazing job navigating that minefield.’ But treating fentanyl as a terror weapon and traffickers as terrorists converts what has been mostly a public-health and law-enforcement issue into a national-security threat, opening the door to a broader U.S.-military response.

    “Sheinbaum has drawn a red line at U.S. strikes on Mexican soil and said flatly last month that they ‘would not happen.’ Her government has set other firm limits on what it considers to be nonnegotiable matters, rejecting the possibility of joint operations that would allow armed U.S. forces to embed with Mexican troops, as the United States has done in Colombia and other drug-war theaters. U.S. and Mexican officials I spoke with told me that Sheinbaum has been willing to expand cooperation on almost everything else.

    “… Mexican officials suspect that Trump’s talk of terrorism and WMDs is a way to gain leverage in the upcoming trade negotiations. Migration and security are at the top of Trump’s agenda, one adviser to Sheinbaum told me, ‘but the economic issue is always what’s really behind it.’

    “… Trump threatened Sheinbaum with more tariffs again this month to force Mexico to send more water from its reservoirs to farmers and ranchers in Texas. Sheinbaum moved quickly to appease him. ‘He’s not someone you can confront head-on, because he responds with more force,’ the adviser told me. Sheibnaum, he said, ‘has been very clear about Mexico’s position without getting into a conflict.’

    The adviser added, ‘This next year is going to be challenging for Mexico.’”

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/NDyovCuD](https://theatln.tc/NDyovCuD)

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