Politics

‘Knife’s edge’: US-Mexico relationship teeters as World Cup begins

Published

4 months ago

June 12, 2026

Just after halftime in their country’s match against South Africa Thursday afternoon, Mexican embassy officials were nervous.

Forward Julián Quiñones scored a goal in the first nine minutes, and spirits were high at the embassy’s Washington D.C. watch party where mini-burritos, cervezas and — in a nod to the bilateral relationship — McDonald’s hamburgers and walking tacos were flowing freely. But South Africa’s shots on Mexico’s goal were creating staccatos of panic as the score remained 1-0.

“So far, so good — but it could be better,” one diplomat quipped.

Talk to Mexican officials, diplomats and business leaders, and it’s a sentiment that’s apropos of the current state of the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Mexico as the two countries, along with Canada, kick off six weeks of World Cup festivities.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum — who did not attend the opening match — has earned plaudits on both sides of the border for her behind-the-scenes work to cultivate a solid working relationship with President Donald Trump, despite vastly different political orientations and persistent friction over migration, drug trafficking and trade.

Sheinbaum’s domestic challenges were also on full display outside the historic Azteca stadium on Thursday, where hundreds of protestors demanding pay raises for teachers and more resources for the search of 130,000 missing persons in Mexico clashed with police and threw cones and other projectiles into the security perimeter.

Now, at what should be a continental high-water mark — as North America unites to host the World Cup — the relationship is instead facing its greatest test. Tensions are running high over the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a brewing extradition standoff over several Morena party officials — including the governor of Sinaloa — and Trump’s fresh threats on Wednesday to target drugs “coming in by land” via Mexico.

“It’s on a knife’s edge,” said Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. during the Bush and Obama administrations. “The paradox is that all of this is playing out as the World Cup kicks off, a World Cup that should have been a moment to celebrate the promise of North America, and to talk about the future of a North American century.”

The strain on the bilateral relationship beyond the World Cup is existential for Mexico — about 80 percent of the country’s exports flow to the United States — but also for the U.S. Mexico is the United States’ largest trading partner, with two-way trade topping $872 billion in 2025, accounting for roughly 15 percent of all goods coming into the U.S. And the integration runs deep into American supply chains, like autos and electronics, meaning that anything that seriously destabilizes the relationship is bad economic news for the U.S.

For now, the anxiety is largely one-directional, as Trump world remains broadly bullish on the U.S.-Mexico relationship even amid genuine turbulence. Two CIA officers were killed in an April crash in Chihuahua that revealed U.S. intelligence operatives working in the field alongside Mexican state investigators without, Mexican officials say, the federal government’s authorization. The Sinaloa indictments followed just over a week later.

“It’s a pressure point, but I also think if you ask people who work on this, they’d say that — relative to where we’ve been in the past — the security cooperation with Mexico is pretty good under Sheinbaum,” said Alex Gray, a former senior National Security Council official in the first Trump administration. “I think things are, all things considered, not bad.”

Even the original architects of the 2026 World Cup bid, which was won during the first Trump administration, agree that cracks in the U.S.-Mexico relationship were a more serious issue eight years ago.

North American soccer executives told Blue Light News that bringing the U.S. together with Mexico wasn’t easy at a time when Trump was calling NAFTA — the precursor to USMCA — “a disaster” and demanding Mexico pay for his border wall.

White House aides laud Sheinbaum’s cooperation on everything from preventing the spread of Ebola heading into the World Cup to efforts to combat drug trafficking. A senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the bilateral relationship, described it simply as “good.”

“I mean, there have been shared responsibilities, like, for example, the whole Ebola thing, right? We worked with them and Canada to ensure that there is proper vetting of individuals coming into the countries,” the official said. “We’re obviously working with her on combatting cartels on many fronts, so it’s good.”

The Mexican embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Yet Mexican officials have watched the relationship unfold with a kind of cognitive dissonance, marked by progress in one lane and crisis in another. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s meeting last month with Sheinbaum in Mexico, for instance, was seen as a positive step for the bilateral relationship, particularly for the security cooperation that has underpinned it.

But that goodwill is being tested on several fronts. The Morena indictments are creating a domestic quagmire for Sheinbaum, who is demanding “overwhelming and irrefutable proof” before moving against Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and the nine other current and former Mexican officials who have been charged by the U.S. Justice Department with drug trafficking and weapons offenses.

Trade talks between the two countries had also been going reasonably well — so much so that the two have been talking without Canada even at the table. But Trump on Wednesday injected a fresh dose of uncertainty by saying he was “not looking to renew” the pact and dismissed the notion that the U.S. needed either of its neighbors. And the countries are all but certain to miss the July 1 date to renew the agreement, with a third round of talks scheduled in Mexico City the week of July 20.

The uncertainty has left proponents of the bilateral relationship nervously reading the tea leaves of Trump’s public appearances for any indication of growing irritation with Sheinbaum.

“What I’m seeing is it’s not just one single relationship: We have several individual and topic-based agendas. You have something very good in one hand and something struggling in the other. What we’re trying obviously is to have an umbrella relationship that is good, that makes the other individual agendas also good,” said Enrique Perret, managing director of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation. “But right now we don’t have that good umbrella relationship. That’s what we’re missing.”

The two leaders still have yet to meet at the White House, a move that some south of the border see as a carefully calculated effort on Sheinbaum’s part to not take any unnecessary gambles with the relationship, and avoid the kind of Oval Office spectacle that became commonplace between Trump and world leaders last year.

The two have only met once in person — at the official draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in December. Whether they’ll appear together at any games in the coming weeks remains an open question.

Politics

Trump will hit several deep-red states in October campaign blitz

Published

5 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail — and a series of his stops are in deep-red states he comfortably won in 2024.

Trump will campaign in Iowa, Florida, Texas and Alaska ahead of Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public plans. That’s on top of his scheduled stop in Oklahoma next week, as the RNC announced, and his visit to Alabama, which POLITICO first reported.

While the president has indicated a desire to stump for Ken Paxton in Texas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska, the addition of Iowa and Florida to his campaign schedule signals an expanded focus on red states as Republicans grow increasingly nervous heading into the final stretch of the midterms.

The president is also preparing to hold campaign rallies in more traditional battleground states starting Oct. 3, according to one of the people.

His travel schedule is a clear signal that the GOP is seeking to shore up their own territory — as rising voter anger over sky-high costs and mass deportations creates new openings for Democrats. The six confirmed states have highly watched Senate, House and gubernatorial contests this November, but they are also ones Trump won by double digits two years ago.

“While Democrats squabble over the last two cents their party has to spare, the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in key races and beyond,” said Natalie Baldassarre, an RNC spokesperson.

“We have the resources to spend, and Republicans are full steam ahead to protect and expand our majorities,” Baldassarre added.

The White House referred Blue Light News to the RNC.

Vice President JD Vance will also ramp up his campaign travel ahead of Election Day. He and Trump are expected to make stops in Ohio to boost GOP Sen. Jon Husted, as POLITICO has reported. Husted is trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in internal GOP polling by top Senate Republicans, according to two other people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share private details.

Trump’s latest midterms travel swing will first start with Oklahoma and Alabama — two deep-red states where Democrats haven’t made the same inroads in statewide elections as they have in other traditionally conservative states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas.

But his Alabama event could help drive turnout and shore up support for GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is in a competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in the state’s 2nd District, despite Republicans’ effort to redraw the seat in their favor.

Republicans in Iowa, Texas and Alaska are growing increasingly alarmed about how close their Senate races are amid fallout from the Iran war and other policy moves by Trump. Florida Republicans have become uneasy about their own firewall, with some polling showing statewide races inside the margin of error.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, recently publicly broke with Trump over the Iran war, as did several other Iowa House Republicans.

“The bigger question on everything continues to be, whatever you do, will there be enough time. I just don’t know,” said one person close to the White House. “We’re teetering on the edge of it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

Politics

Poll: A crack is emerging in Trump’s coalition over deportations

Published

11 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.

New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.

Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.

The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.

Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.

Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.

And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The Blue Light News Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.

The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.

“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Blue Light News is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”

“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.

Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”

She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.

That distinction is also reflected in The Blue Light News Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.

“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”

Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.

But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.