Mexico's tariffs signal that it is prepared to build Trump's wall

Trump wanted to wall off America and Mexico seems ready to help

- MIHIR SHARMA

When the Mexican Senate voted last week to approve a 50% tariff rate on a swathe of countries— China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan among them—politicians from President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party pretended they did it for their own reasons.

Nobody in Asia believes this is a bold declaration of economic independence, however. It’s seen instead as opening a new and unexpected front in Donald Trump’s trade war on the world.

The vote waived the senators’ usual right to discuss amendments in committees and it passed 76-5; the opposition abstained. Officials grandly delivered the usual lines that accompany measures cutting off trade: That they would protect local industry, that revenue would increase by almost $3 billion, that there would be more money to spend on supporting the unemployed.

But the real reason is that Sheinbaum is spooked by the deadline, six months away now, for reviewing the USMCA. The speed with which she pushed the legislation through and its timing are no coincidence: Trump said earlier this month that he might let NAFTA's successor expire or “maybe work out another deal” that ensured the US wasn't “taken advantage of.” Nobody wants that can of worms reopened.