Donald Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum spoke by phone on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, as Mexico–US trade talks kept moving, with officials on both sides saying the talks are active and heading in a positive direction. The same machinery that squeezes workers and consumers through tariffs and trade rules is now grinding forward behind closed doors. The people who pay for it don’t get a seat at the table.
Sheinbaum confirmed the call at her morning press conference on Thursday, Sept. 17, and said, “I would like to see a report on what the United States government does inside the United States,” adding, “We in Mexico are acting. But what happens on the other side?” At her Friday briefing, she said she spoke with Trump on Wednesday and called it a very good call, saying the possibility of an agreement is advancing well. Nice language. The pressure stays in place.
Who Holds the Levers
The talks are aimed at US duties on Mexican steel and aluminum, which stand at 50 percent, cars and auto parts, which face 25 percent where they do not qualify under the USMCA, and goods that fail the agreement’s origin rules. A restructuring in April and June 2026 softened part of this, with USMCA-qualifying goods paying the metals duty only on their non-US content. That’s the hierarchy in plain sight: trade rules written at the top, costs pushed downward, and workers and communities left to absorb the damage.
The fourth formal round of talks is set for Sept. 28-29 in Washington, one week later than first planned. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer leads for Washington, and Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard leads for Mexico City. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick traveled to Mexico earlier this month as the talks accelerated. The names change. The structure doesn’t.
The United States declined to renew the USMCA in its current form on July 1, 2026, moving it into annual reviews that can run through 2036. Three formal rounds of talks have taken place since July. Reuters reported on Sept. 11 that both sides want a framework before the US midterm elections in November. So the timetable bends around electoral theater, while the trade regime keeps its boot on the neck of ordinary people.
Digital Payments, Mandatory by Design
Mexico’s Digital Economy Law for Digital and Electronic Payments was sent to Congress on Sept. 8 and published in the parliamentary gazette the same day. The bill would let the finance ministry designate sectors where accepting digital payment becomes compulsory, and it would require public sector entities to accept digital payments from the outset. After approval, the finance ministry would have fifteen working days to name the first sectors, and sector regulators would then set their own timelines.
That’s not a neutral modernization project. It’s a state-directed push to reorder how people pay, with ministries and regulators deciding who must comply and when. The bill does not reform CoDi or DiMo, Mexico’s existing instant payment platforms. It also brings the digital population registry into the financial system as a trust mechanism, and the central bank gains new duties on digitalisation and financial inclusion. The apparatus expands. The language softens it.
The article said Mexico still runs heavily on cash and that the policy logic is that acceptance drives usage rather than the other way round. It said Brazil offers the comparison Mexican officials cite most often, with its instant payment system moving from launch to near-universal use in about four years because acceptance came first. That’s the model they admire: get the system accepted first, then make it unavoidable.
Courts, Claims, and Corporate Pressure
A separate set of figures from the United Nations trade and development body put Mexico among the most-sued states in investment arbitration. Mexico tied with Ukraine for the most new investor-state cases in 2025, at five each, and tied with Russia in 2024, at four each. In 2023 it faced ten disputes. The Mexican government acknowledged 23 active investor-state arbitrations as of June 30, along with two suspended, three discontinued, four annulment proceedings and one enforcement action.
Critical minerals and energy account for the bulk of them. That’s where the pressure lands: on public decisions, on land, on resources, on the right of communities to live without corporate capture dressed up as law. The article said 56 investment arbitrations were initiated worldwide in 2025 and about 80 percent were brought against developing economies. The pattern is clear enough without any speeches from the powerful.
The trade talks, the payment law, and the arbitration figures all point in the same direction. Decisions get made above people’s heads. The costs get pushed down. And the institutions call it order.