On Monday, President Donald Trump struck separate deals with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hours before the U.S. was set to impose a 25% tariff on goods from both countries. Both Mexico and Canada agreed to strengthen their borders to reduce the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrant crossings into the U.S. and, in exchange, Trump agreed to delay, for a month, a tariff regime that would’ve sparked a regional trade war and caused a seismic shock to the North American economy.
On the surface, this might look like a win for Trump. Mexico agreed to reinforce its border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to stem fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration into the United States. And Canada said it will spend $1.3 billion on helicopters and personnel to secure its border, and appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” to oversee efforts to mitigate the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
The terms of the deal released so far suggest that what Mexico and Canada agreed to is pretty superficial.
But as is often the case with Trump, appearances can be deceiving. The terms of the deal released so far suggest that what Mexico and Canada agreed to is pretty superficial. To be clear, it is a relief for the U.S. consumer that, for now, the tariffs aren’t going into effect. But it’s hardly a major policy win that will move the dial on the problems Trump claims he’s fixing. And it’s hard not to wonder if Trump also felt rushed to secure some kind of handshake and ribbon-cutting after being spooked by the stock market ahead of the tariff deadline.
Before breaking down these deals, it should be noted there’s something inherently strange and impetuous about Trump’s current attitude regarding tariffs with Canada and Mexico. For decades, the U.S. has had a free trade agreement with both countries, NAFTA, that allows for seamless trade across the continent. During his first term, Trump renegotiated that agreement to address, among other issues, provisions regarding auto manufacturing and labor regulations. Now Trump is threatening to blow up free trade norms that he spent a lot of time adjusting to his preferences. And he is risking destabilizing the economy not to win better terms on trade, but to try to strong-arm neighboring countries into addressing the different issues of migration and drug flow into the U.S.
But experts have cast doubt on whether the new deals will address those issues. “As of now, there’s no reason to think it’s anything but optics,” Stephanie Brewer, the Mexico director at the Washington Office on Latin America, told me Monday in response to the Mexico deal. Brewer said that for decades, and increasingly in the last several years, Mexico has militarized its borders and deployed tens of thousands of troops to crack down on migration and drug flow to little effect. “Militarization of the border, deployment of military troops at the U.S.-Mexico border, has coincided with both highs and lows in arrivals to the United States, and certainly it has led to human rights violations against the migrant and asylum-seeking population,” she said. Brewer also described militarization as a “tried and failed” model for reducing the flow of drugs across the border.
Consider that during the spike in migration across the U.S.-Mexican border during the Biden administration, around 30,000 Mexican military personnel were deployed on border and migration missions across Mexico. That number includes increased troop presence at the southern and northern borders of Mexico and migratory routes through the country, and doesn’t even include many other Mexican troop deployments that were focused specifically on organized crime and illicit drug trafficking in Mexico. It is currently unclear if Mexico’s newly promised National Guard deployment would even increase the net number of currently deployed troops focusing on migration and drug trafficking in Mexico, or if redeployments would make them more effective in any way.
Theshia Naidoo, the managing director of foreign policy advocacy at the Drug Policy Alliance, is also skeptical that militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border is going to make a difference. “Deploying troops to the border is unlikely to make any dent in the fentanyl supply in the U.S. Fentanyl enters the U.S. through multiple channels, including mail and package shipments, drones, planes, boats, and other transportation methods,” Naidoo wrote in an email. “As long as there is a demand, the market will adjust to meet it. History shows that crackdowns and supply-side responses to fentanyl result in new, stronger, often more dangerous drugs entering the supply, because new sources emerge to meet the demand.”
Both Brewer and Naidoo emphasized that the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. should be approached through a public health paradigm within U.S. borders.
Trump’s deal with Canada is also mostly optics, and overall much lower stakes. Canada’s $1.3 billion commitment to border spending isn’t new; that plan was launched in December, before Trump took office. And to the extent that Canada’s actions have some kind of impact on illegal crossings, it will be a drop in the bucket for the overall issue Trump claims to be concerned about. In 2024, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended about 24,000 people illegally crossing the U.S.-Canadian border into the U.S. — about 1.5% of apprehensions nationwide. As for fentanyl, authorities seized just 43 pounds of the drug the whole year — less than 1% of fentanyl seized nationwide.
In other words, the real issue is at the U.S.-Mexican border. Yet there’s no evidence that Trump’s deal will change the fundamental dynamics that have been taking place there for decades. And the “concessions” Trump has secured are certainly not commensurate with the kinds of extreme economic pain he would’ve induced by going through with the tariffs. As is typical of Trump, these deals are more theater than anything else.
