To say that the United States and Mexico have a complicated relationship is to put it lightly. 

There is so much that connects the two neighboring countries: rich history, cultural ties, economic partnerships. And so much that causes friction between the two: immigration, drug trafficking, human smuggling, illegal weapons, politics.  

Over the last 200 years so much has happened that we could spend many episodes of Latino USA just trying to get through the highlights. So for this episode we’ll focus on just this century. We’ll get to the present, of course, but we’ll first look at a few key moments over the last 25 years to better understand the context of how we got here. How we got to a second Donald Trump White House and a first woman president in Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum.  

We have longtime border and immigration journalists, the OGs Angela Kocherga and Alfredo Corchado join our host Maria Hinojosa for a conversation. Kocherga has worked in Mexico and the U.S., she is the news director at KTEP, and writes for news outlets in the border region. Corchado reported for The Dallas Morning News for over 30 years and is the author of Midnight in Mexico and Homelands.

We’ll get into key moments that, in one way or another, have been laying down the groundwork for the present, including how Mexico’s declaration of war on drug cartels in the mid-aughts was fueled by weapons smuggled south from the United States, how changing migration patterns under the Obama administration ensued what the U.S. saw as a humanitarian crisis, how the Mexican government pulled out a red carpet for candidate Trump 1.0 after he attacked Mexicans, and more. 

And there’s today, of course. We’ll discuss the White House’s current deportation efforts, its threats to Mexico and the Mexican president’s “cabeza fría”—her cool and level-headed approach to dealing with an unhinged U.S. president. 

As Alfredo Corchado says in the conversation: “All world leaders ought to be watching (Mexico’s president) Claudia to learn a thing or two about how to handle President Trump.” 

And as Angela Kocherga reminds us that every four years politicians treat the border as a piñata, “you bash it for votes, and you bash it for money.” 

The reality is that it’s hard to keep up with how much is constantly evolving when it comes to policy and the conversations happening between the two countries right now, and that are likely to continue. 

Just recently, the Trump administration officially designated six Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorists organizations.” This “stirred worry” in Mexico that it could be a “preliminary step” for a U.S. military intervention, even though during Sheinbaum’s predecessor administration, Mexico established limits to how foreign agents could operate in the country. This time around, Sheinbaum said she is going to propose reforms to Mexico’s constitution because this “cannot be an opportunity for the U.S. to invade our sovereignty.” 

***

This episode was produced by Fernanda Echavarri. It was edited by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Mixed by Stephanie Lebow and JJ Querubin.

Featured collage by Luis Luna (Photos by AP Photo/Ryan Sun, File, AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, and AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)