President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico's trade talks with the United States were advancing after a call with Donald Trump that she confirmed on Friday, September 18, 2026. The terms of the game are still being written by the powerful, and the people who live with the consequences get only fragments. Sheinbaum said the Wednesday call had been planned in advance and that her government had not announced it earlier because of progress in the talks.
Who Holds the Levers
Sheinbaum said “certain agreements” were reached, but gave no details until a final deal. That’s how these arrangements usually move: behind closed doors, with the public told to wait while the machinery of state and trade grinds on. She said the objective was “at least a reduction in the tariffs we currently have.” The report said the talks were moving toward a final deal aimed at reducing U.S. tariffs across several sectors.
The United States currently charges 50 percent on Mexican steel and aluminum and 25 percent on cars and auto parts that do not qualify under the USMCA, the trade pact between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Those numbers aren’t abstract. They’re pressure, imposed from above, and they land on workers, producers, and communities far from the rooms where the bargaining happens.
Sheinbaum said security was not discussed this time. The omission matters because the conversation stayed narrowed to trade terms, tariffs, and state interests, while the people affected by those decisions remain outside the frame.
What the Powerful Call Progress
Sheinbaum said the USMCA “has not disappeared,” but that U.S. tariffs mean “the original idea is not preserved.” That’s the language of managed decline. The pact still exists, but only after the United States declined to renew the agreement in its current form on July 1, 2026, moving it into annual reviews that can run through 2036. The arrangement now lives under a clock set by governments, not by the people who have to endure the consequences.
The next formal round opens on September 28 in Washington. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer leads for Washington, and Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard leads for Mexico City. The names matter because the process is concentrated in the hands of officials, not communities. They negotiate the terms; everyone else absorbs the fallout.
Sheinbaum also said she respects Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decisions, a reference to Ottawa’s turn toward the European Union after its own talks with Washington broke down. That detail shows the same pattern in another capital: when talks fail, the ruling class simply reroutes the deal-making elsewhere.
Who Pays for the Bargain
The peso traded near 17.15 per US dollar on Thursday, close to a one-month low, after the Federal Reserve raised rates on September 16. Markets react fast when central banks and trade authorities move. Ordinary people get the bill later, in wages, prices, and instability they didn’t vote for and don’t control.
Mexico’s central bank decides its next interest rate on Thursday, September 24. Another institution, another closed-door decision, another round of consequences pushed downward. The report said the direction of movement is toward an agreement, but no tariff line has changed and neither side has published any text. So the public gets the familiar ritual: announcements about progress, no text, no transparency, and no relief yet for the people caught under the tariffs.
The call was planned in advance. The announcement was delayed. The deal remains unwritten. And the apparatus keeps moving, with the same old promise that the next round will somehow make the pressure easier to bear.