The U.S.-Canada relationship has imploded. But along the other, typically more contentious U.S. border, a partnership is blooming.
In his second term, President Trump has made Mexico — once his favorite punching bag — now one of his closest and most important allies.
The two nations have expanded cooperation to slow illegal border crossings to historic lows, joined forces to disrupt drug cartels and increased commerce to become each other’s biggest trading partners.
Mr. Trump opened his second term by threatening airstrikes in Mexico to stop immigration and drug trafficking at the border. But after a year of tensions, the relationship is lifting off as U.S. relations with Canada have nose-dived.
Trump administration officials have recently begun praising Mexican efforts against the cartels, including in an official declaration last week, though they say they still want more action. Military and security agencies on both sides of the border have significantly deepened their ties, with officials in both countries saying there has never been better collaboration. And U.S. officials have effectively shelved plans for U.S. airstrikes on Mexican soil, at least for now, according to one U.S. official, one former Pentagon official and two Mexican officials.
Now, the Trump administration also appears to be nearing a trade agreement directly with Mexico.
Last week, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said she and Mr. Trump had reached agreements on several trade issues in a long phone call. Hours after that call, Mr. Trump said at a campaign rally that the two nations were “very close” to a trade deal.
Roberto Lazzeri, Mexico’s ambassador in Washington, said in an interview that he hoped they would have some sort of deal by the U.S. midterm elections. “We’re on a good track,” he said.
It is a twist few expected when Mr. Trump returned to office: Mexico, not Canada, as his chosen neighbor. The shift reflects how he has shuffled the global map, particularly in favor of countries willing to cooperate with his demands.
For this article, Times reporters interviewed nearly a dozen U.S. and Mexican officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
In his address to the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he was focused on getting Latin American nations to help fight against drug traffickers. “I’m very proud to tell you we have a very good relationship with the Mexican government,” he said. “We’ve made great strides, very great strides with Mexico.”
His transactional approach on the world stage also comes with unpredictability. While he has repeatedly complimented Ms. Sheinbaum as a world leader he respects, he also posted an image this month of the American flag superimposed over her nation.
But Mexico is also critical to the success of the Trump agenda. He campaigned on stopping the flow of migrants and fentanyl across the border, and the U.S. economy relies in part on Mexico, especially amid the trade war with the other top U.S. trading partner, Canada.
In the face of Mr. Trump’s threats of airstrikes, ground troops and tariffs, Ms. Sheinbaum has focused on his priorities. She stationed 10,000 troops along Mexico’s side of the border and ramped up operations against cartels, often using U.S. intelligence.
From the final full month of the Biden administration to last month, total monthly border encounters — which count both arrests between crossings and migrants turned away at official ports — fell 87 percent, to 12,200.
Fentanyl seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped by half in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2024. And the Sheinbaum administration has already destroyed 2,700 drug labs in two years, 100 more than the preceding government destroyed in six.
The Sheinbaum government has taken a much more aggressive approach against the cartels, adding more than 600 new investigative agents, compared with zero under her predecessor, according to a Mexican official.
Its work has been augmented by deeper collaboration with the United States.
Since last year, U.S. security agencies have added hundreds of new Mexican law enforcement officials to Mexico’s so-called vetted units, which are specialized task forces that have been trained and vetted by U.S. authorities and which receive U.S. intelligence on cartel targets, according to Mexican and U.S. officials.
As a result, the Mexican Navy now interdicts nearly every boat in Mexican waters that U.S. intelligence flags as carrying drug traffickers, Mexican and U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials still want more. The State Department said in a statement: “The Mexicans have done more than they ever have before to address these challenges, but it is still not nearly enough — they know that, we’ve expressed that to them.”
Mexico and the United States are also doing more business together. In the first half of the year, total trade of goods between the countries increased about 14 percent compared with a year prior, to nearly half a trillion dollars.
Mexico, which now accounts for roughly one-sixth of all trade for the United States, has effectively had the lowest tariff rate of any major trading partner. A new trade agreement could lower that even further. At the same time, Mexico has imposed up to 50 percent tariffs on many Chinese imports, thrilling U.S. officials.
The expanding partnership has been fostered in part by a warm relationship between Mr. Trump and Ms. Sheinbaum, developed over more than 20 conversations.
Ms. Sheinbaum speaks English on their calls and aims to clearly explain Mexico’s achievements in advancing Mr. Trump’s priorities, including by sending charts that show declining border crossings and fentanyl seizures, according to two people with direct knowledge of the calls.
She is firm but coolheaded while telling Mr. Trump that Mexico would not accept direct U.S. intervention on Mexican soil, these people said. She has also recently brought up the U.S. government’s poor treatment of some Mexican migrants, arguing they are hard-working people who contribute to the U.S. economy, they said.
Mr. Trump and his advisers continually push for more action against undocumented migrants and drug traffickers, but he is also warm toward his Mexican counterpart, they said. He has repeatedly called Ms. Sheinbaum elegant and said she has a “beautiful voice,” both in public and on calls with her, according to three officials.
After Mr. Trump told reporters this month that he could cut trade ties with Mexico if he wished, he added: “I don’t want to do that, because I get along very well with the president. We like the president. We respect her a lot.”
The moment’s good vibes are exceptional when considering the tensions just a few months ago.
Two C.I.A. officers died in an April car crash during a drug lab operation in Chihuahua state. The incident infuriated Ms. Sheinbaum, who said her cabinet was unaware of U.S. activities in the state. Then U.S. prosecutors indicted a sitting Mexican governor from Ms. Sheinbaum’s party, accusing him of aiding cartels.
Ms. Sheinbaum walked a delicate line in response. She refused to order the indicted governor’s arrest, but privately pressured him to step down. She warned of U.S. threats against Mexican sovereignty while continuing to expand security cooperation. Over time, the tensions defused.
Mexican officials say her composed approach is the opposite of Canada’s tack — and it is working.
“We have learned that taking a belligerent or isolationist attitude is not going to achieve anything; it’s going to drive up prices and products,” said Ricardo Monreal, a Mexican lawmaker who leads Ms. Sheinbaum’s coalition in Congress.
“Sheinbaum has gotten it right: not taking the bait,” he added. “Mexico is not positioned for a major confrontation, and I think the president understands that very well, unlike Canada.”
For instance, when Mr. Trump posted the image of the U.S. flag over Mexico, Ms. Sheinbaum posted from her own account that Mexico will always remain independent, but did not directly address his post.
Mr. Lazzeri, Mexico’s ambassador in Washington, said in an interview that Mexican officials don’t take such posts too seriously. “It’s a picture, not an official statement. So I wouldn’t know how to react to a picture,” he said.
When asked if it was currently the best moment in U.S.-Mexico relations, Mr. Lazzeri called it a moment of “the deepest coordination.”
“The best moment is very subjective,” he added, “as the world is going through a complex moment.”
Yet there is a wing of Ms. Sheinbaum’s political party, Morena, that wants her to push back harder.
Washington’s revocation of visas of Morena political figures, including the son of Ms. Sheinbaum’s predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, has particularly angered some who accuse the Trump administration of trying to destabilize their leftist movement. Mexico is one of the last Latin American countries still run by a leftist, after a streak of seven consecutive right-wing election victories in the region since Mr. Trump took office.
“It’s part of a broader campaign to discredit and harass our movement,” said Gerardo Fernández Noroña, a Morena senator. “We’re under attack, facing terrible interference from the U.S. government.”
In Ms. Sheinbaum’s daily news conference, that thinking sometimes shines through. She frequently warns of U.S. influence in her country. And when the two nations’ deepening relationship comes up, she frames it with a new favorite motto: “coordination without subordination.”
Eric Schmitt and Tyler Pager contributed reporting from Washington, and Steve Fisher and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City.
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