The leaders of Canada and Mexico are competing for President-elect Donald Trump's favor before his inauguration, trading jabs rather than engaging in direct conflict or even joining forces as they try to prove which country is more essential to the United States.
“Talking to Mexicans and Canadians, they each see that they need to get to a position where they can negotiate together with the United States," Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and co-chair of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute Advisory Board, reports The Hill Saturday. "That’s not the position they’re being offered right at the moment, but I think they will try to move in that direction."
Trump is threatening 25% tariffs against both countries unless his demands are met to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking, with many seeing his moves as a "divide and conquer" strategy with the top two trading partners of the United States.
And Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum appear to be taking the bait.
Sheinbaum took offense to a comment from Canadian Ambassador to the United States Kirsten Hillman that after Trudeau and Trump's conversations, "the message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood."
“Mexico is to be respected and more so by our trade partners," Sheinbaum retorted. "They wish they had, truly, the cultural wealth of Mexico, of our ancestors, of our original peoples. Mexico has more than 3,000 years of history and precolombian, prehispanic, grandiose civilizations."
For years, since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations in the early 1990s, the United States has been trying to level the playing field. As a result, NAFTA opened the previously closed Mexican economy. Ten years later, the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), was geared toward regional development, not opening markets for U.S. goods and services.
But still, challenges remain, said Lila Abed, director of the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.
"With the announcements of tariffs that we’ve just heard in the last couple of weeks, there is a real question surrounding North America integration, about free trade, nearshoring and also, of course, this under the upcoming 2026 USMCA [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement] review process," she said.
But for the past few years, the agreement was believed to be up for review, not renegotiation. USMCA, the NAFTA replacement put in place during Trump's first administration, included a review clause to go into place six years after the 2020 deal was signed.
Meanwhile, Conservatives in Canada are holding a lead over Trudeau's Liberal Party ahead of next year's elections. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is striking a Trump-like Canada-first position and has rejected any kind of North American regionalism, including for Canada to reach a bilateral deal with the United States and pushing Mexico aside.
"I only care about Canada," he said. "I want to put our country first. Two, America is responsible for over 60 percent of our trade. We trade more with the U.S. than we trade with the rest of the world combined. I will do what is necessary to preserve and protect that relationship above all others."
Meanwhile, Trump may face internal pressure to tone down his rhetoric, particularly from border states relying on USMCA exports.
"Trade with Mexico and Canada supports millions of jobs in Texas," commented Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. "If Trump is serious about starting a trade war with our allies, his administration will be putting those jobs at risk."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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