How Mexico talked Trump out of tariff threat with immigration crackdown pact

  • Mexican negotiators persuaded President Trump to back down from his tariff threat by agreeing to an unprecedented crackdown on Central American migrants and accepting more-expansive measures in Mexico if the initial efforts don’t deliver quick results, according to officials from both governments and documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
  • The enforcement measures Mexico has promised include the deployment of a militarized national guard at the Guatemalan border, thousands of additional migrant arrests per week and the acceptance of busloads of asylum seekers turned away from the U.S. border daily, all geared toward cutting the migrant flow sharply in coming weeks.
  • Trump officials Monday described the accord as a breakthrough, and the president considered Mexico’s plan aggressive enough to suspend his tariff threat, even though he liked the idea of imposing the duties over howls from members of his own party.

(Source: The Washington Post)