Just after halftime in their country\u2019s match against South Africa Thursday afternoon, Mexican embassy officials were nervous.<\/p>\n

Forward Juli\u00e1n Qui\u00f1ones scored a goal in the first nine minutes, and spirits were high at the embassy\u2019s Washington D.C. watch party where mini-burritos, cervezas<\/i> and \u2014 in a nod to the bilateral relationship \u2014 McDonald\u2019s hamburgers and walking tacos were flowing freely. But South Africa\u2019s shots on Mexico\u2019s goal were creating staccatos of panic as the score remained 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, so good \u2014 but it could be better,\u201d one diplomat quipped.<\/p>\n

Talk to Mexican officials, diplomats and business leaders, and it\u2019s a sentiment that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum \u2014 who did not attend the opening match \u2014 has earned plaudits on both sides of the border<\/u><\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Now, at what should be a continental high-water mark \u2014 as North America unites to host the World Cup \u2014 the relationship is instead facing its greatest test. Tensions are running high<\/u><\/a> over the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a brewing extradition standoff over several Morena party officials<\/u><\/a> \u2014 including the governor of Sinaloa \u2014 and Trump\u2019s fresh threats on Wednesday to target drugs “coming in by land\u201d via Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s on a knife\u2019s edge,\u201d said Arturo Sarukh\u00e1n, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. during the Bush and Obama administrations. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strain on the bilateral relationship beyond the World Cup is existential for Mexico \u2014 about 80 percent of the country\u2019s exports flow to the United States \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/u><\/a> that revealed U.S. intelligence operatives working in the field alongside Mexican state investigators without, Mexican officials say, the federal government\u2019s authorization. The Sinaloa indictments followed just over a week later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a pressure point, but I also think if you ask people who work on this, they’d say that \u2014 relative to where we’ve been in the past \u2014 the security cooperation with Mexico is pretty good under Sheinbaum,\u201d said Alex Gray, a former senior National Security Council official in the first Trump administration. \u201cI think things are, all things considered, not bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the original architects of the 2026 World Cup bid<\/u><\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

North American soccer executives told Blue Light News that bringing the U.S. together with Mexico wasn\u2019t easy at a time when Trump was calling NAFTA \u2014 the precursor to USMCA \u2014 \u201ca disaster\u201d and demanding Mexico pay for his border wall.<\/p>\n

White House aides laud Sheinbaum\u2019s 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 \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d the official said. \u201cWe’re obviously working with her on combatting cartels on many fronts, so it’s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mexican embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

But that goodwill is being tested on several fronts. The Morena indictments<\/u><\/a> are creating a domestic quagmire for Sheinbaum, who is demanding “overwhelming and irrefutable proof” before moving against Sinaloa Governor Rub\u00e9n 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.<\/p>\n

Trade talks between the two countries had also been going reasonably well \u2014 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 \u201cnot looking to renew” the pact<\/u><\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty has left proponents of the bilateral relationship nervously reading the tea leaves of Trump\u2019s public appearances for any indication of growing irritation with Sheinbaum.<\/p>\n

“What I\u2019m seeing is it\u2019s 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,\u201d said Enrique Perret, managing director of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation. \u201cBut right now we don’t have that good umbrella relationship. That\u2019s what we’re missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The two have only met once in person \u2014 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"