This was supposed to be different.<\/p>\n
When this year\u2019s World Cup was awarded to the United States, Mexico and Canada back in the summer of 2018, world leaders and soccer officials alike stressed an overarching theme: unity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to bring the world together and highlight how well things work between Canada, Mexico and the United States,\u201d said Justin Trudeau, Canada\u2019s prime minister at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada, the United States and Mexico are profoundly united,\u201d said Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto, then Mexico\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
President Trump, then in his first term, agreed: \u201cThe U.S., together with Mexico and Canada, just got the World Cup. Congratulations \u2014 a great deal of hard work!\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast forward to Thursday, when this first-ever three-country World Cup began in Mexico.<\/p>\n
The Mexican national team faced off against South Africa in the first of the tournament\u2019s 104 games spread all over the continent, from Vancouver and Toronto to New York and Kansas City to Monterrey and Guadalajara. (Mexico won that first match, 2-0.)<\/p>\n
It is a historic tournament, with a record number of teams competing (48). And it is an event that the world celebrates every four years, one of the few touchstones to resonate throughout almost every corner of the globe, bridging national, religious, ideological and countless other divides.<\/p>\n
But aside from the fever for the game, unity has not been the prevailing sentiment of late among the three host countries, and the execution of this neighboring-allies World Cup has not been seamless.<\/p>\n
Since beginning his second term last year, Mr. Trump has repeatedly targeted Mexico and Canada with verbal attacks<\/a>, vows of military action<\/a> and tariffs<\/a>. His administration has enacted a strict immigration policy<\/a> that has turned away some World Cup participants<\/a>, journalists and fans.<\/p>\n And just a day before the tournament began, Mr. Trump took another economic swing at his co-hosts, threatening<\/a> to let the nearly $2-trillion free trade pact between the three countries expire.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t need anything that Canada has, we don\u2019t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have,\u201d Mr. Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office, adding: \u201cWe don\u2019t need their cars, we don\u2019t need their lumber, we don\u2019t need their energy, we don\u2019t need anything that they have.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond that, there has been widespread criticism of the prices for a tournament that was billed as being inclusive. For the first time, FIFA, soccer\u2019s governing body, has used dynamic pricing, pushing tickets to eye-popping levels<\/a>, when they can be secured at all.<\/p>\n Of course, this is hardly the first World Cup to take place in the shadow of politics, and the discord has often been far more heated. Mussolini hosted the 1934 World Cup in Italy and used it to bolster his fascist rule. Argentina held the tournament in 1978 during its brutal military dictatorship. Just four years ago, Russia was barred from qualifying for the competition<\/a> for invading Ukraine.<\/p>\n For many fans around the world, the politics hanging over the tournament often recede once the games begin and the cheers for their national teams start.<\/p>\n But in both Mexico and Canada, there is a feeling that their nations will serve only complementary roles in this event.<\/p>\n They each get to hold 13 games, in three Mexican and two Canadian cities. By contrast, the United States \u2014 a bigger country, with larger stadiums \u2014 is holding 78 games across 11 cities, including the quarterfinals, semifinals and the final.<\/p>\n To many in Mexico and Canada, it is clear that FIFA was mainly targeting the United States, the largest economy in the world.<\/p>\n FIFA\u2019s president, Gianni Infantino, has spent years wooing Mr. Trump<\/a>, including awarding him a first-of-its-kind FIFA Peace Prize<\/a> \u2014 all of which has raised concerns within the soccer community about what is supposed to be a politically neutral position as the sport\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n In Mexico, where soccer is the national sport, holding the World Cup again has been a large point of pride. No other country in the world \u2014 not Brazil, with its record five titles, nor any of the European powers \u2014 has held the event as many times as Mexico (1970, 1986 and now).<\/p>\n Mexico City\u2019s iconic stadium, colloquially known as Estadio Azteca, hosted the opener for a record third time. It first opened in 1966 and underwent a near $200 million makeover for this World Cup, increasing its capacity to 87,500 seats. But not all have been happy, including residents upset by what they say is gentrification accelerated by the World Cup.<\/p>\n Protests have already snarled Mexico City\u2019s dense traffic and more were planned \u2014 from the national teachers\u2019 union to mothers searching for missing loved ones<\/a> in a country where disappearances are a crisis \u2014 to converge around the opening game. The police largely kept them away from the stadium.<\/p>\n On the diplomatic front, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has tried to tread carefully<\/a> with Mr. Trump, but the relationship between the countries has been strained, particularly this year.<\/p>\n Under pressure, her government has ramped up collaboration with American authorities, capturing or killing<\/a> several top cartel leaders. Her country has become the United States\u2019 top trading partner for both imports and exports<\/a>, and it imposed tariffs on China<\/a> that align with Mr. Trump\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n But Ms. Sheinbaum has routinely insisted on protecting Mexican sovereignty and rejected Mr. Trump\u2019s threats of military strikes on the cartels in Mexico. The cross-border relations were then significantly strained<\/a> in April, when the Trump administration unsealed an indictment accusing a Mexican governor and nine other current and former Mexican officials of helping a powerful Mexican cartel in exchange for bribes and votes.<\/p>\n Ms. Sheinbaum has refused to arrest the governor, a member of her political party; criticized U.S. officials for not providing sufficient evidence; and repeatedly framed the accusations against him as a potential affront to Mexican sovereignty.<\/p>\n Breaking from the longstanding tradition of world leaders, Ms. Sheinbaum did not attend the World Cup opener. She gave away her V.I.P. ticket to the first game to an Indigenous 21-year-old woman who is an amateur soccer player. She said she had planned to watch it with the general public on a giant screen in Mexico City\u2019s main square, but she ultimately attended a smaller public watch party with some members of her political party.<\/p>\n Her Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Mark Carney, is in his own standoff with Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n The relationship between the United States and Canada, once a near-familial bond built on economic and cultural integration, is today at a historic low. Mr. Trump has cast Canada as a weak, extractive nuisance, sending Canadians into an unusual patriotic fervor<\/a> and recasting the country\u2019s political fortunes.<\/p>\n While trade is at the heart of the current souring of relations, the rift in the relationship runs deeper. His statements that Canada should become the 51st state have struck a chord in Canada<\/a>, which last year elected Mr. Carney, a seasoned financier, as prime minister to steady the country through the tumult of the Trump era.<\/p>\n Mr. Carney has set out to build new alliances around the world for Canada and has championed opening up new markets to break his country\u2019s overwhelming dependence on business with the United States. He has even opened a door to more trade with China<\/a>, breaking with years of foreign and trade policy in which Canada was fully aligned with the United States. Mexican and Canadian officials have also been talking separately about the future of their trilateral trade deal with the United States.<\/p>\n