NEW: Mexico Blinks in Tariff Fight, Cuts Deal for Delay

Tired of all the winning yet? Canada launched a series of retaliatory tariffs over the weekend after Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all imports coming across the northern border. Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum had promised to unveil her own set of retaliatory tariffs today.

Instead, she caved, earning a 30-day respite to hammer out a deal on drug interdiction:

U.S. tariffs on Mexico, which were set to take effect tomorrow, will be put on hold for a month, President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X. Mexico has reached a series of agreements with the Trump administration, saying it will reinforce the border with 10,000 Mexican National Guardsmen to counter drug trafficking, specifically fentanyl. The United States is also expected to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons into Mexico. “Our teams will begin work today on two areas: security and trade,” Sheinbaum said.

I guess the guac and Coronas are still on for this weekend’s Super Bowl parties, eh? For the entire weekend, the Protection Racket Media kept hyperventilating that avocadoes and beer would get outrageously expensive and that a mass inflationary cycle would hit the Tex-Mex market at any moment! 

Chuck Schumer’s attempt to fuel the hysteria brought a quick rebuke from Salena Zito, reminding everyone that Americans produce avocados and beer too:

Yuengling (America’s oldest brewery) & California avocado growers have words. https://t.co/mxaHnyKcty pic.twitter.com/hf6Uew4IDh

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) February 3, 2025

Donald Trump confirmed the deal on Truth Social:

I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.

The White House confirmed the agreement to delay while Sheinbaum redeploys its forces to secure its side of the border. Administration officials insisted that its tariffs with Canada and Mexico are primarily about drug trafficking and security rather than economics, and pointed to Mexico’s belated cooperation as its true end goal:

Earlier Monday, a White House official told POLITICO that Trump was still pushing for action on border security from Canada, Mexico and China, and their response could result in a decrease or the removal of the sweeping tariffs set to go into effect on Tuesday.

The official said the duties were more about border security than the trading relationships.

Our friend Julio Rosas pointed out that this isn’t even a novel development. Trump took the exact same action against Mexico in 2019 when its government balked at the Remain in Mexico policy and threatened to stop cooperating on border security:

This is why the hyperventilating about tariffs was stupid. This is an exact repeat from Trump’s first term: The Mexican National Guard was sent to secure their side of the border after several caravans because Trump threatened tariffs in 2019. https://t.co/OjD823SVtC

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 3, 2025

At that time, Mexico had agreed in principle in December 2018 to the Remain in Mexico and border-security arrangements but began dragging its feet on both. Trump issued the tariffs in retaliation, which prompted all sorts of media hysteria about avocadoes, beer, and sugar … until Mexico quickly shifted and began complying with their earlier agreements. 

Did everyone in the mainstream media just forget about that episode? Develop amnesia? Or did they hire five-year-olds to report on the tariffs this past week?

So much for all of the hyperventilation. For the price of Trump’s breath over the last few days, the US has won a significant concession on drug trafficking and border security that won’t cost American taxpayers a dime. Heck, even Sheinbaum sounds chipper about the deal:

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico called her deal with the Trump administration — averting tariffs for a month and cooperating to curb the flow of drugs and weapons — a “good agreement.” She also said she had told Trump about the Mexican government’s new campaign to discourage its people from using fentanyl: Posters and digital billboards have recently appeared across the country contrasting images of despair with family scenes and urging Mexicans to “Choose Happiness.” With a smile, Sheinbaum said Trump had said of the campaign, “Send it to me.”

And now that Sheinbaum has cut a separate deal with Trump, that increases pressure on Justin Trudeau. He and Trump have a call scheduled for later in the afternoon to discuss the dispute, and Sheinbaum’s settlement on the basis of increased security and interdiction puts the real issues in stark relief even for those north of the border. Trudeau’s already on borrowed time in Ottawa, and so are his Liberals. If Canadian consumers and exporters get hit with tariffs while Mexico avoids them, they won’t blame Orange Man Bad. And Americans won’t be pining for Canadian guacamole at the Super Bowl, either. 

Addendum: This hyperventilation from the Protection Racket Media reminds us all once again of the importance of independent voices in the public square. The mainstream media has transformed itself into the propaganda arm of the left, and they work hard to intimidate advertisers and pressure Big Tech into choking off access to competing points of view. We hope we can gather as many allies as possible to keep all of these issues in the public square – and indeed to preserve the public square at all.

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