Sheinbaum Rejects Trump’s Tariff Threat Over 1,500-Migrant Caravan
Mexico's president says no caravan has reached the US border since January 2025 after Trump threatened to double tariffs. USMCA review talks continue.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected US President Donald Trump’s threat to double tariffs on Mexican goods over a migrant caravan, telling reporters on Thursday that no caravan has reached the US border since Trump returned to office in January 2025, the Times of India reported.
Trump had said he would immediately double tariffs on Mexican imports unless Mexico stopped a group of around 1,500 migrants, mostly from Central America, who set out from Tapachula in southern Mexico on Tuesday.
What Sheinbaum said about the groups
Speaking at her daily news briefing, Sheinbaum said a separate group of around 600 migrants traveling through the southern state of Chiapas had largely dispersed. According to her, they broke up after being told that reaching the United States would be very difficult.
Mexican authorities are also in talks with several hundred Honduran migrants and are encouraging them to go back to their home country, she said.
She ruled out using force to break up the groups. Authorities, she said, have long experience accompanying migrants and explaining the obstacles they would face trying to reach the US. The Times of India did not report the route or destination of the larger group beyond its departure from Tapachula.
The trade talks behind the threat
Trump’s warning arrives while Washington and Mexico City are negotiating over duties the US has placed on Mexican products. Those talks run alongside the review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which began in July.
Mexico is asking for substantial cuts to several US measures:
- The 10% tariffs on goods that fall outside the trade agreement.
- The 25% duties on medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks.
- The 50% US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
- A 17% countervailing duty on Mexican tomatoes. A countervailing duty is an extra charge meant to offset subsidies a government gives its exporters.
The source says Mexico is seeking substantial reductions in the first two items, and that the talks also cover the steel, aluminum and tomato duties.
What this means for Mexico
The threat adds a migration condition to negotiations that already involve four sets of US duties and a trade agreement review. Goods outside the agreement, trucks, steel, aluminum and tomatoes are all on the table, so any change to the tariff on Mexican imports would land on top of those open questions.
For residents of Mexico, the practical stakes sit in the outcome of those talks and in how the government handles the migrant groups in the south. Sheinbaum’s position is that there is no caravan reaching the north, that the Chiapas group has dispersed and that Honduran migrants are being encouraged to return home. Trump’s demand, as reported, is that Mexico stop migrants from traveling through its territory.
The two governments have not announced a result on either track. The USMCA review that began in July is still running, and the tariff discussions continue alongside it.
Source: The Times of India
