Latin America Advisor | Q&A on What's at Stake for Mexico in the USMCA Review

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Q: Mexico’s government expects a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to begin this September or October, instead of as scheduled in July 2026, Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said. U.S. President Donald Trump has called for the agreement, which he negotiated during his first term in office, to be reworked. What is the significance of an early renegotiation of the USMCA, and how might it affect the consultation process’ outcome? How might non-trade-related factors like migration play into a new agreement? How feasibly could the agreement be significantly reduced in scope?

A: Since re-entering the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled he would seek an early review of USMCA, and the fact that his administration’s first tariff tussles were with Canada and Mexico only underscored the potential. That explains why Secretary Ebrard, who has said he visits Washington every 10 days for meetings, indicated the possible ahead-of-schedule arrival of talks with little surprise, even suggesting the move could help calm investor and consumer nerves. Indeed, Mexico has come out of recent months’ upheaval on surer footing than most U.S. trade partners, thanks in part to USMCA protections.

That doesn’t mean the path ahead will be smooth, and Trump recently hinted the North American pact could face termination. The talks must be seen in the larger context of other U.S. government priority areas, notably China, immigration, and security.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has had at least seven phone calls with Trump as of May 23, is drawing accolades at home and abroad for calmly weathering Washington’s tariff threats, but recent events expose the delicate nature of ties. For example, days after Sheinbaum rebuffed Trump’s suggestion to send U.S. troops into Mexico to battle organized crime groups, the United States revoked the visas of a Mexican border-state governor and her spouse—both members of the ruling party. Scant reasons were given, and concerns persist that other high-profile Mexican officials could also see their visas revoked. On the other hand, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recently praised Mexico’s security collaboration. In the months ahead, we should expect this bilateral balancing act to continue.

Zócalo Public Square | She Was Mexico’s First, Forgotten Congresswoman

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Zócalo Public Square | She Was Mexico’s First, Forgotten Congresswoman

When Aurora Jiménez de Palacios took her seat in Mexico’s Congress in 1954, the country’s women still hadn’t been able to vote in a national election. The 28-year-old, showered with confetti and joined by her young daughter, climbed the steps of the Chamber of Deputies, becoming Mexico’s first congresswoman—and opening the door for seven decades of women’s rising legislative power.

In October 2024, Mexico inaugurated Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president. I started uncovering Jiménez’s story around that time, while doing research on the country’s path to political gender parity. Today, Mexico has an equal number of men and women in Congress, and among the highest global rates of women’s political representation. But gender equity in Mexican politics is paradoxical: If measured only by the share of women in political leadership, Mexico’s story is one of success; if measured by Mexican women’s lived experiences of violence and economic gaps, it falls short. Perhaps this paradox also explains why Jiménez’s rise to power, lauded at the time, was then largely forgotten in the decades before Mexican women gained their political foothold.

Mexican women gained the right to vote and be elected in 1953—but they weren’t able to exercise those rights in a national election until the 1955 midterms, and they didn’t get to elect a president until 1958. In the middle of it all, Jiménez won a 1954 special election in the state of Baja California. Her story caught my attention not only for its unexpected timing or because she broke a barrier that connects directly with Mexico’s political present, but also because her life story was—and is—unconventional for a woman’s rise to political power. 

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Americas Quarterly | Who is the Dark Horse in Mexico’s Presidential Race?

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They have more in common than just a last name. Interior Minister Adán Augusto López Hernández is not related to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, but both silver-haired politicians hail from the state of Tabasco in Mexico’s southeastern tropical lowlands. Like the president, López Hernández got his start in the PRI before eventually making his way to the party AMLO founded, Morena, in 2015. And just as AMLO rode an electoral tsunami to victory in the 2018 elections, López Hernández beat his closest rival by more than 40 points to become Morena’s first governor of Tabasco—a role he gave up to join the Cabinet.

Now a pre-candidate in the 2024 presidential race, López Hernández’s main strategy is to emphasize his similarities to the president—but will it be enough to convince AMLO’s most loyal supporters? A March 6 El Financiero poll places López Hernández third among the ruling party’s presidential hopefuls with 15% support compared with 28% for Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and 22% for Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. Alejandro Moreno, head of El Financiero’s public opinion polling, told me that López Hernández attracts a more ideologically moderate voter while Sheinbaum or Ebrard appeal more to the party’s leftist base. That might help explain why López Hernández has been adopting the same language used by the president, said Moreno. “He has probably come to understand that he has to seek out the diehard, radical, AMLO voter that favors the other two [pre-candidates].”

AMLO has shared his stage with all three, giving each the spotlight in a test of who could win Morena’s internal poll for the party nomination and the June 2024 election after that. Sheinbaum is viewed as the top choice, while López Hernández stands as the president’s insurance policy should she stumble.

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