Mexico to Review U.S. Migration Agreement Results in 45 Days

(Bloomberg) -- Mexico in 45 days will review whether migration flows have fallen as part of the deal it reached with the U.S. last week to avoid tariffs that threatened more damage to its slowing economy.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico will speed up deployment of its recently-created National Guard at the southern border with Guatemala to boost surveillance while Mexican migration authorities will demand identification to any visitor entering the country.

"What did we win? There are no tariffs, there is no threat of tariffs in 90 days, the migration issue is separated from trade," Ebrard said at a Monday morning news conference alongside President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He said this was the first time that a tariff threat U.S. President Donald Trump made toward another country didn’t go into effect.

AMLO, as Mexico’s president is known, said Congress will hold a special session to ratify the USMCA trade deal with the U.S. and Canada, and added that legislative approval could come within a week.

Migration Initiative

Ebrard said there is no specific target for migrant flow reduction as part of the deal. U.S. negotiators originally aimed for "zero" migrants crossing Mexico but that was an impossible objective, he said.

If those efforts do not yield results in 45 days, Mexico will look for a broader regional initiative with Central American nations to stop migrants heading toward the U.S., and that would require congressional approval to change Mexican law, he said.

Asked about any side agreements as part of the negotiations, Ebrard reiterated there is no agricultural deal as Trump suggested in Tweets over the weekend.

"I am very happy, satisfied, with the agreement that was reached with the government of the United States," Lopez Obrador said. "I am very happy because we avoided a crisis."

Trump Tweeted over the weekend and repeated on Monday that some aspects agreed to with Mexico weren’t announced in Friday night’s joint declaration, including Mexican plans to increase purchases of U.S. farm products.

--With assistance from Eric Martin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ney Hayashi at ncruz4@bloomberg.net, ;Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Matthew Malinowski

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