U.S.–Mexico Relations

Mexico’s Congress passed legislation Wednesday authorizing tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries without trade agreements, notably China, with the Senate voting 76–5 (35 abstentions) after lower-house approval earlier in the day. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who proposed the move in September, is expected to sign it for January implementation, impacting goods such as auto parts, textiles, plastics, and metals as Mexico seeks to bolster domestic manufacturing and curb its trade deficit with China.

President Trump again threatened a 5% tariff on Mexico via Truth Social unless Mexico immediately releases more Rio Grande water, saying he has “authorized documentation” to impose the duty — a reprise of an April confrontation when Mexico instead agreed to transfer reserves and boost flows and tariffs were not imposed. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government will seek a solution that helps the U.S. without risking Mexican people or agriculture, noting immediate delivery of 200,000 acre-feet is constrained by pipe sizes and other physical limits and that the 1944 treaty allows deferred deliveries after the extraordinary 2023–24 drought; U.S. and Mexican officials, including USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and acting foreign minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez, met Tuesday in the fifth meeting this year to try to resolve the dispute.

The New York Times reports that the CIA provided Mexico with a list of more than two dozen Russian intelligence officers posing as diplomats, but Mexican officials declined to expel them despite direct U.S. warnings to then‑President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. While Mexico agreed in 2023 to let U.S. officials weigh in on new Russian diplomatic credential applications—rejecting some—the Russian operatives already in country were allowed to remain even after Mexico’s presidential transition last fall, according to multiple current and former U.S. and Mexican officials.