Here’s a WOLA podcast episode recorded Wednesday (December 4) with my WOLA colleagues Stephanie Brewer (Mexico) and John Walsh (Drug Policy). Donald Trump’s crude tariff threat against Mexico and Canada last week tells a lot about what we’ll be dealing with over the next few years. It also showed a possible new side to Mexico’s responses to this sort of bullying. And meanwhile, we need never to lose sight of the absurdity and cruelty of the migration and drug policies that Trump is trying to force on the United States’ closest neighbors.

Here’s the text of the landing page at wola.org. And if you prefer text to audio, check out the brief Q&A explainer that we posted at the same time.

On November 25, President-Elect Donald Trump announced via social media that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada unless migration and fentanyl trafficking ceased entirely. The announcement caused widespread alarm, spurring a flurry of responses and an unclear conversation between Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The event was instructive about what we might expect after Trump assumes the presidency in January, WOLA Director for Mexico Stephanie Brewer and Director for Drug Policy John Walsh observe in this episode.

Brewer explained the “tariff threat” incident, how it plays into the political agendas of both Trump and Sheinbaum, and the danger of doing serious damage to a multifaceted, interdependent bilateral relationship.

Host Adam Isacson, who covers border and migration policy at WOLA, joined the discussion to point out that Trump seeks to bully Mexico into carrying out a crackdown on migration that has, in fact, already been underway for some time—with serious human rights implications.

Walsh observed that demands on Mexico to crack down on fentanyl threaten a reversion to supply-side, prohibitionist approaches to a complex drug problem that not only haven’t worked over the past 50 years, but may in fact have ceded much control to armed and criminal groups.

The U.S.-Mexico border, and the bilateral relationship, may be marked by these episodes of threat and bluster for much of the next few years. Weathering this period will require civil society in both the United States and Mexico to play an aggressive role, demanding “steadiness, focus on facts, keeping things grounded in reality,” and never losing sight of what better migration and drug policies would look like.

Download this podcast episode’s .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.