Mexico reportedly talked Trump out of tariffs by offering 'aggressive' crackdown on migrants

(Image credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 11 June 2019

President Trump was persuaded to drop his plan to impose tariffs on goods from Mexico after Mexican negotiators promised to crack down on Central American migrants, officials from both governments told The Washington Post.

Mexico said it will arrest thousands of migrants every week, deploy the national guard to the border with Guatemala, and accept asylum seekers rejected at the U.S. border, the Post reports. Trump lashed out on Monday morning after it was reported that several of these conditions had been agreed to earlier, and tweeted that should Mexican lawmakers fail to approve parts of the deal, "tariffs will be reinstated!"

White House officials told the Post that Trump supports the plan because it's "aggressive." The deal was solidified when Trump, his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller were all in Europe; Mexican negotiators met with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Mexican officials did request the U.S. focus on adding more immigration judges in order to speed up the asylum process, and reminded the administration that it is not Mexico's fault the U.S. has a dysfunctional immigration system, the Post reports.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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