A Mexican Standoff

Mexico’s geopolitical reality is defined by a stark fact: Unlike other emerging economies, it lacks the material capacity to choose a geoeconomic path separate from that of its northern neighbor, the United States. As the international order shifts and US global dominance faces the challenge of a rising China—primarily in the economic and technological realms—Mexico’s future will be deeply influenced by the strategic choices made in Washington.

For Mexico, this debate is not abstract. It has immediate, tangible stakes. The path the United States chooses will shape Mexico’s economic and political landscape. Two competing US grand strategies stand out: nationalist isolationism, which we saw during Donald Trump’s administration, characterized by economic protectionism and unilateralism, and liberal internationalism, represented by Joseph Biden’s administration, which emphasizes cooperation with allies and a rules-based order. These rival visions reflect a deeper domestic struggle over America’s national project, a conflict that will continue to shape US policy beyond the recent election cycle and into the foreseeable future.

Each of these grand strategies has distinct implications for Mexico, affecting everything from trade agreements and supply chain integration to security cooperation and diplomatic relations. But it is worth noting that, while the United States’ relative decline reshapes its global strategy, it does not alter the existing power imbalance with Mexico. In both strategies, Mexico is seen as having no viable alternative but to collaborate with the United States in its quest to maintain international leadership. Should Sino-American bipolarity consolidate, Mexico would be regarded as part of the United States’ economic and technological sphere of influence. The critical difference lies in how each strategy envisions Mexico’s role within that sphere and the blend of persuasion and coercion tools used to ensure Mexican alignment on issues deemed strategic by Washington.

Nationalist Isolationism: The Fortress America Dilemma for Mexico

The nationalist isolationist grand strategy posits that the United States must reassert its greatness. In the context of perceived relative decline, the strategy advocates for the reassertion of national sovereignty and disengagement from multilateral political and economic institutions. This approach gives preference to unilateralism and is less inclined to pursue negotiated outcomes with other countries. In its zero-sum perception of global affairs, the United States must always win in the short term, thereby asserting its superior weight. The strategy is hostile to economic globalization and advocates trade protectionism. It postulates a retrenchment of the United States in global security issues and proposes to use its military capacity only to confront direct threats to its interests, while expecting each country to do what is necessary for its own defense. It rejects the idea that the United States should promote democracy and human rights in the world.¹

Of all these issues, the most consequential for Mexico is how the United States chooses to push back against its relative economic decline versus China. At first glance, the trade war and other measures intended to decouple from China bode well for the Mexican economy, as companies spontaneously seek to shift their supply chains to the neighboring country. However, economic nationalism posits the return of economic borders to the United States and the restructuring of free trade agreements to promote the revival of American manufacturing, even at the cost of great losses to its partners.

The nationalist isolationist grand strategy sees economic and technological competition with China as an essentially bilateral issue. Therefore, measures to strengthen North America as a regional platform for all partners’ competitiveness do not fit into the equation. To the extent that the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement continues to exist, Mexico will be identified as a subordinate country that must accept the role of supplier on terms that best serve Fortress America. Given this perspective’s disdain for rule-based orders and its unilateralist tendencies, we can expect frequent threats and constraints, not least, the possibility of US withdrawal from the trade agreement. The Mexican economy will continuously wrestle with uncertainty.

In terms of security, the nationalist isolationist grand strategy calls for the United States to refrain from making lasting strategic commitments at the global level. However, it also stipulates that the country should be prepared to act unilaterally if it identifies a direct threat to its security. One such threat is drug trafficking and the public health crisis resulting from opioid use. As this outlook explicitly defines Mexico as a failed state, the country will likely be forced to allow US security forces to operate on its territory in the fight against drug cartels. Furthermore, it could also be subject to unauthorized drone strikes. “We are going to unleash the fury and might of the US against these cartels,” Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said in a recent press conference.² Given the low value this grand strategy places on multilateral institutions and norms, Mexico will be less able to seek the support of international forums in the face of a hostile US.

On the other hand, the diminished inclination to send US troops abroad may be viewed with some relief in Mexico, particularly if this includes landing Marines in Latin American and Caribbean countries under the pretext of regime change. Indeed, a large segment of the Mexican elite prefers the United States to project an ideologically agnostic foreign policy. They distrust the missionary zeal of liberal internationalism to spread its values and its form of government, which they perceive as interventionist and imperialistic. Conversely, another part of the elite considers the disinterest of nationalist isolationism in the health of democracy in Mexico and Latin America to be a negative factor because it contributes to enabling authoritarian regressions in the region.

As a neighbor of the United States, the nationalist isolationist strategy poses problems for Mexico not only on the diplomatic front, but also because of what it means in terms of US domestic politics. Advocates of this foreign policy course subscribe to a nativist nationalism that employs an anti-immigrant narrative as a vehicle for building consensus among a discontented population. It portrays migrants as a threat to personal security and American jobs: “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump declared at a recent rally.³

The reiteration of this xenophobic discourse has a profoundly negative impact on the daily lives of the vast Mexican diaspora residing in the United States. They are subjected to discrimination, they fear accessing public health and education services, they mistrust law enforcement, and they are more vulnerable to hate crimes, such as the massacre that killed 23 people in El Paso, Texas, in 2019. This also implies that the Mexican state must invest more human, financial, and legal resources to support and protect its nationals through its 52 consulates in America. This path would mean an increase in the number of deportations and voluntary return of migrants and the fear generated by the anti-immigrant discourse reduces circularity (round trips between the United States and Mexico) of documented migrants, which weakens the cohesion of transnational families.

Liberal Internationalism: Strategic Partnerships and Mexico’s Role

Alternatively, the United States could respond to its relative decline by pursuing a liberal internationalist strategy. Liberal internationalism has come to recognize that the United States is no longer in a position to seek global primacy. Instead, it views the United States’ role as leading one of the camps in the new polarity. In order to contain geopolitical rivals, the US must strengthen cooperation with regional allies and like-minded countries. Liberal internationalism understands that the United States is no longer able to induce or coerce cooperation from emerging powers to achieve the results it desires in global multilateral institutions. Therefore, although it does not propose a disengagement from traditional international organizations, it is moving towards the creation of select membership groups to cooperate on specific issues (minilateralism). This approach supports free trade in principle, but introduces national security considerations into its international economic policy, including the use of export bans, selectively targeted tariffs and security-shoring. It maintains a commitment to the advancement of democracy and human rights on the global stage: It cares about ideological balancing. However, in practice it is more self-restrained, prioritizing the use of promotion tools over direct intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.⁴

The liberal internationalist response to relative decline presents a more encouraging prospect for Mexico. In principle, a relatively weaker United States seeking to strengthen its relationship with allies and partners to contain the rise of China opens the opportunity for a more even-handed way of engagement with its neighbors. As Assistant Secretary Brian Nichols recently said, “Mexico plays a key role in our work in North America to advance democracy, economic prosperity, and security”.⁵ To the extent that Washington perceives the need for Mexico’s willing collaboration in this enterprise, there are gains to accrue and, of course, pressures to endure.

From an economic standpoint, this grand strategy identifies North American integration as an asset in the context of the United States’ competition with China. It places less emphasis on achieving self-sufficiency and instead prioritizes the reinforcement of a regional approach to supply chains. As US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, put it: “[W]e support the creation of reliable, secure supply chains that span the United States and Mexico and benefit both our economies.”⁶ The strategy proposes industrial and trade policies designed to reduce reliance on China in crucial sectors, such as semiconductors and critical minerals, with greater involvement from Mexico and Canada. In this perspective, Mexico is regarded as a smaller partner whose economic advancement contributes to a more robust and secure United States. Consequently, the United States would be amenable to negotiating benefits in exchange for cooperation. Of course, Washington will take advantage of the existing power asymmetry to define economic priorities and compel Mexico to align itself with vital US security objectives, particularly with regard to restricting Chinese foreign direct investment and its supply of technological services. Just recently, a bilateral Memorandum of Intent was signed for the development of a foreign investment screening regime in Mexico that in Yellen’s words would “counter the threat certain foreign investments pose to our national security”.⁷ However, if this vision succeeds, Mexico can anticipate a reduction in the arbitrary exercise of American power and the ability to operate within a regional system of rules and institutions.

In the context of the bilateral security agenda, which is primarily concerned with combating drug trafficking, the liberal internationalist logic prefers to negotiate or induce cooperation rather than resort to unilateral measures that could hurt the political relationship with a partner like Mexico and feed its resistance. In this vein, the potential for an uninvited and targeted use of force in Mexican territory against cartels will be weighed against the consequences in terms of how the United States is perceived in the Western hemisphere. In contrast to nationalist isolationism, this vision is attentive to courting different potential allies across the globe, including Latin America. In light of China’s expanding influence south of the continent, Washington will tend to avoid hard power actions that encourage Latin American balancing or hedging strategies aimed at mitigating security risks in an uncertain strategic environment.

Finally, liberal internationalism identifies ideological balancing as an element of the United States’ grand strategy of decline and presents a narrative that divides the world into democratic friends and authoritarian foes. Biden, for instance, has explicitly cast this as an ongoing “great battle for freedom” in the world.⁸ At first glance, Mexico has little to fear as it is today located in the democratic camp. Moreover, Mexico has historically been somewhat exempt from the United States’ liberal internationalist crusades. The Cold War proved that every American government—including Jimmy Carter’s liberal internationalist administration—was willing to work with less-than-democratic Mexican counterparts that ensured political stability and order. Only if Washington were to perceive that Mexico is vulnerable to outright regime change due to, for instance, intense ideological contestation and instability would an open intervention be on the table. In less critical scenarios, however, this outlook still supports the use of soft democracy promotion tools in Mexico (e.g., the National Endowment for Democracy financing of local NGOs). For instance, an influential liberal think tank recently admonished that “standing up for democracy in our closest neighbor is of fundamental importance to the vibrancy of North America and to shared peace and prosperity in two countries whose fates are tied together”.⁹ If perceived as overly intrusive, the United States risks a nationalist backlash from Mexican leftist political forces, which could lead to increased tensions.

Mexico’s Tightrope between Isolationism and Cooperation

As the international system transitions towards bipolarity or multipolarity, the logic that states must adhere to one or the other sphere of economic and technological influence will gradually gain traction. Some countries in the Global South, such as Brazil or India, are in a position to pursue a policy of strategic autonomy or to choose alliances. Given its geographical location and the extent of its economic and demographic integration with the United States, Mexico lacks the material basis to select a geo-economic camp other than that led by its neighbor. As was the case during the Cold War, Mexico may resort to political soft balancing or symbolic hedging tactics (for instance, through dissenting votes in the United Nations) to underscore its political independence, but it will have little room for maneuver on hardcore issues.

It is clearly in Mexico’s interest that the U.S. economy remains strong and competitive, but not by means of any strategy. The liberal internationalist strategy enables Mexico to pursue a more balanced bilateral relationship, wherein it has some latitude for negotiation and potential gain if it navigates the Sino-American strategic rivalry wisely. It is unfortunate that this stance has been temporarily superseded by the results of the recent presidential elections. The advent of a nationalistic and isolationist U.S. foreign policy over the next four years will have a detrimental impact on Mexico. Not least because the domestic foundation of such a strategy is a radical right-wing ideology that scapegoats foreigners, with Mexican immigrants and Mexico as a country being favorite targets. However, the arc of history is long, and it is only reasonable to hope that this will not be the project of nationhood that is consolidated in the United States in the decades to come.

Natalia Saltalamacchia is chair of the Department of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She served as General Director of the Matías Romero Institute, Mexico’s diplomatic academy, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2015 and 2018. 

1. See policy positions in Paul Dans and Steven Groves, eds., Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (The Heritage Foundation, 2023) and Robert C. O’Brien, “The Return of Peace through Strength,” Foreign Affairs 103, no. 4 (2024): 24–38. For academic (and critical) summaries of this approach see Carla Norrlof, “Hegemony and Inequality: Trump and the Liberal Playbook”; International Affairs 94, no. 1 (2018): 63–88; and Stephen M. Walt, “The Trump-Vance Unilateralist Delusion,” Foreign Policy, July 24, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/24/trump-vance-project-2025-foreign-policy-unilateralism-realism-restraint/. ↩︎
2. Lindsey Graham, “We Are Going to Unleash the Fury and Might of the US Against These Drug Cartels,” US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, March 8, 2023, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/graham-we-are-going-to-unleash-the-fury-and-might-of-the-us-against-these-drug-cartels. ↩︎
3. Aaron Blake, “‘Poisoning the Blood’: Trump’s Ugliest Moments on Immigrants,” Washington Post, December 18, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/18/poisoning-blood-trumps-ugliest-moments-immigrants/. ↩︎
4. For policy-level discussions of this approach see Jake Sullivan, “The Sources of American Power,” Foreign Affairs 6, no. 102 (2023): 8–29 and Ben Rhodes, “A Foreign Policy for the World as It Is,” Foreign Affairs 103, no. 4 (2024): 8–23. For an academic account see Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Getting Restraint Right: Liberal Internationalism and American Foreign Policy,” Survival 63, no. 6 (December 2021–January 2022): 63–100. ↩︎
5. Brian A. Nichols, “On-The-Record Briefing: Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols Previewing Secretary Blinken’s Travel to Mexico,” US Department of State, September 9, 2022, https://www.state.gov/on-the-record-briefing-assistant-secretary-for-western-hemisphere-affairs-brian-nichols-previewing-secretary-blinkens-travel-to-mexico/. ↩︎
6. Janet L. Yellen, “Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at Press Conference following Bilateral Meeting with Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Rogelio Ramírez de la O of Mexico,” US Department of the Treasury, December 7, 2023, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1964. ↩︎
7. Janet L. Yellen and Rogelio Ramírez de la O, “Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen and Mexico’s Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Rogelio Ramírez de la O Announce Intent to Establish Bilateral Working Group on Foreign Investment Review,” US Department of the Treasury, December 7, 2023, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1965. ↩︎
8. Joseph R. Biden, “Remarks by President Biden on the United Efforts of the Free World to Support the People of Ukraine,” The White House, March 26, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/26/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-united-efforts-of-the-free-world-to-support-the-people-of-ukraine/. ↩︎
9. Dan Restrepo, “Amid 2024 Global Elections, Mexico’s Is Most Important for the United States,” Center for American Progress, August 22, 2023, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/amid-2024-global-elections-mexicos-is-most-important-for-the-united-states/. ↩︎