How Mexico’s leader is writing the playbook for handling Trump

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MEXICO CITY—When President Trump called her last week, President Claudia Sheinbaum was prepared to speak with a U.S. leader who wouldn’t yield on tariffs.

Instead, she negotiated a deal that world leaders are studying for their own trade talks with the U.S. The Feb. 3 call was tough, often tense and ran long, almost 45 minutes, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sheinbaum—who alternated between an interpreter and speaking English to make an emphatic point—stayed on message, they said, parrying Trump on trade, drugs and migration in ways that caught his attention without escalating into a disagreement. “One must speak in Trump’s language," said a person familiar with the discussions. The coup de grace was her administration’s idea: Mexico would deploy 10,000 troops to the border to fight fentanyl flows and help with border security, matching Trump’s own show of force along the Rio Grande.

They agreed to pause tariffs for a month to see how the border enforcement went, with a similar agreement for Canada. By the end, Trump liked her toughness, but at the same time she played ball, these people said. For example, troop deployment is something that Trump loves, one Mexican official said.

Later that day, Trump said he “had a great talk with Mexico." Members of Mexico’s national guard patrol the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. “President Sheinbaum is a woman I like very much," Trump told reporters, before adding that whether he liked her or not, he still had to stop drugs and illegal immigration. Sheinbaum’s surprise deal with Trump showed Canadian officials that there was a path to avoiding the punitive tariffs the U.S.