ANALYSIS: Washington talks with Mexico without Ottawa, and the agenda swells from 54 to nearly 90 items

The country at the front of the line

A round postponed

The fourth round of talks between Mexico and Washington would not take place the following week: Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez announced it on September 23, in Mexico City.

The country said to be first in line is waiting too. And its list has grown. From 54 items to nearly 90, according to Reuters.

Ottawa has no round at all.

No date. No room. No agenda.

That is the paradox. Mexico is in the room, and the room is not moving. Canada is outside. And we keep hearing that everything happens inside.

Where the part gets made

In an auto parts plant, on either side of CUSMA, the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement, these rounds are not abstractions. Forklifts beep. Orders get counted.

Mexico supplies about 44.6% of the auto parts imported by the United States, according to Latin Times.

For Canada, Washington is threatening to raise duties on cars, parts and steel to 50% starting in January, Reuters reports.

Two assembly lines. The same wait.

The North American agreement still holds. Its promise, less so. The break with Ottawa casts doubt on its viability, Reuters writes.

First or last, everyone waits for the same letter from Washington.

Fifty-four

The original list

We have to begin with the starting number.

When the talks opened, Washington handed Mexico a list of 54 items. Items to settle in the hope of lower tariffs. President Claudia Sheinbaum recalled it in mid-September, according to the daily Vanguardia.

Her method fits in one sentence. On each item, Mexico proposes a way out, she says. Not always the one Washington asks for. Some demands would violate Mexican law.

She adds an idea. To shrink the American deficit, Mexico is looking to buy from the United States what it now buys elsewhere.

The deficit is the thread. Trump is trying to reduce it, she recalled on September 18. Everything else hangs from that thread.

Fourteen, says Ebrard

Mexico’s economy secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, puts a number on the result. By his account, the list of American complaints has fallen from 54 to 14, Latin Times reports.

Forty items settled, then. The model student has done the homework.

That is the picture Washington likes to show Canada. Mexico settles. Mexico does not retaliate. Mexico moves forward.

Canada retaliated. It left the table on August 21.

Fifty-four demands, and an answer for each one.

Nearly ninety

September 23

And yet, on the very day he postponed the round, Gutiérrez gave another number.

The negotiating agenda has grown from 54 topics to nearly 90, he said, according to Reuters. He sees it as the natural evolution of complex files. Digital platform regulation, for example.

Sheinbaum had put it differently a few days earlier, according to Vanguardia. The list climbed as Washington added new demands.

Emptying, filling

Fourteen on one side. Nearly ninety on the other.

The two numbers do not contradict each other. They describe a movement.

One counts what goes out. The other, what comes in.

The list grows longer as it is emptied.

That is what Mexico’s place in line reveals first. A list being emptied is not a list being closed. A partner who answers everything does not, for all that, get an end to the demands.

It gets the next batch.

Settling forty items brings others to the surface.

The calendar that keeps slipping

Three rounds, then a floating date

Mexico has already held three rounds, according to El Heraldo de México. The first wrapped up on May 29 in Mexico City. The second took place in Washington in June. The third ran from July 21 to 23, back in Mexico City.

The fourth is floating.

On September 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that it would slide to September 28 and 29, after Xi Jinping’s visit. Columnist Rodrigo Pacheco recalls this in Excélsior. On the 23rd, Gutiérrez took it off the following week.

October, maybe.

As late as the morning of the 23rd, El Heraldo de México wrote that the date was not confirmed. The Economy Ministry spoke of provisional dates. That same day, they were gone.

Xi, the G20, Lutnick

Gutiérrez cites scheduling conflicts. The Chinese president’s visit to the United States. The G20 summit in Miami in December. The two countries will announce the date in the coming weeks, he said, according to Mexico News Daily.

Pacheco offers another reading. On September 9, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick cancelled a visit to Sheinbaum at the National Palace at the last minute. All that remained was a video call.

As the columnist reads it, the delay follows a pattern close to Canada’s. Progress with Greer’s office. Then Lutnick’s refusal to lower the Section 232 tariffs.

A date that keeps receding is not a date drawing closer.

Twenty-two calls

No announcements

Mexico has its method, and it shows.

On September 18, Sheinbaum confirmed she had spoken with Donald Trump on Wednesday, September 16. A scheduled call, she said. Some agreements reached. Nothing public before the final deal.

She added a number. She has spoken with Trump 22 times since taking office.

Mexico has had three rounds. Mexico has had twenty-two calls. Mexico has had daily technical coordination with Greer’s office, according to Gutiérrez.

Ottawa has had a breakdown, on August 21.

Just one.

No microphone

Greer underlined the difference himself. On Monday, September 21, on Bloomberg, he sounded optimistic about Mexico, Excélsior reports. He cited the aluminum trade monitor Mexico presented on September 18.

Above all, he pressed one point. The negotiation with Mexico is not argued in the media. It is done quietly.

The allusion to Canada needed no name.

At the UN, Trump singled out Mexico as the epicentre of cartel violence. In the same speech, he said he was very proud of his good relationship with the Mexican government, Pacheco notes.

The rebuke and the caress. Same podium.

Mexico speaks softly, and Washington listens more often.

Ottawa with no meeting booked

Banff, mid-September

In Banff, at a cabinet retreat in mid-September, Dominic LeBlanc acknowledged he had no meeting scheduled in Washington, according to the National Post.

Mexico and Washington were then aiming for a deal before the November 3 midterm elections. LeBlanc played down the speed. Racing toward a deal two months out, he said, does not look like speed.

The National Post listed the other threats. A ban aimed at Bombardier. Duties of 50% on Canadian cars and trucks as of January 1, 2027.

On September 25, in Moncton, LeBlanc said he talks to Greer a few times a week, CBC reports. Without waiting by the phone.

Leverage over us

The same day, Greer told CNBC he saw no urgency in closing a deal with Canada. “They call us now and then,” he said of the Canadians, according to Reuters.

Reuters adds a reading. Some experts think the Trump administration wants to close with Mexico first. That would give it more leverage to get a better deal with Canada.

A phone sitting on a desk, ringing at no fixed hour. That is our channel.

Who will write the rule while we call back?

Outside the room, nobody negotiates. We wait for the copy.

Why Mexico goes first

January 1, in Mexico

We have to write down what unsettles our own version.

Washington’s preference for Mexico has documented reasons. On January 1, Mexico imposed new or higher tariffs on goods from countries without a free trade agreement, China and Taiwan among them, according to Mexico News Daily.

Imports fell in nearly 1,500 product categories.

A signal. Washington knows how to read it.

Mexico did not retaliate against American tariffs. Ottawa did.

The White House put it in writing on September 8. Over the past year and a half, only two countries retaliated rather than negotiate: China and Canada.

The same month in Beijing

Also in January, former diplomat Michael Kovrig recalls in the Globe and Mail, Ottawa struck a deal with Beijing that included a quota for Chinese electric vehicles.

Two moves. The same month. Two opposite directions.

For Washington, which is negotiating with Mexico over Chinese investment, the order of the line is not arbitrary. And we, too, hold Beijing’s power to be the first threat.

That is true, and it does not change this: Mexico’s alignment has not yet bought the lifting of the Section 232 tariffs. That remains Gutiérrez’s priority.

The good grade has not opened the 232 door.

The Section 232 door

Fifty percent American content

Reducing the Section 232 tariffs is the priority, Gutiérrez said on September 23, according to Reuters. He meant steel, aluminum and autos.

Fifty percent on steel. Fifty percent on aluminum. Fifty percent American content demanded in vehicles for preferential access, according to Latin Times.

Mexico objects. It wants relief on autos, steel and aluminum first. Only then will it give ground elsewhere. The White House shows no sign of flexibility, Latin Times writes.

The rest of Mexican trade can breathe. Since July 24, Mexican goods outside the agreement pay 10% more. Those that comply remain exempt. More than 80% of Mexican exports would be, by a Mexican government estimate.

Lutnick’s wall

It is the same wall Canada faces. National security tariffs. A commerce secretary who will not lower them. A calendar that slips.

I admit it. I first read the Mexican postponement with a little relief. We would not be the only ones waiting.

Then I read what their list contains.

The relief did not last.

The wall does not tell the model student from the latecomer.

What gets written without us

Mexico’s list

Here is what is being negotiated in the room we are not in.

Mexico is negotiating vehicle content, according to Reuters. Mexico is negotiating Chinese investment. Mexico is negotiating the rules for digital platforms. It is negotiating steel and aluminum. And, according to Gutiérrez, it is negotiating the regional share of electronic components.

None of these files stops at the Canadian border.

They concern us. Without us.

A rule written by two

Latin Times reports that Greer told senators he hopes for interim deals with Mexico and Canada this year. Auto content, labour and the environment would be pushed to 2027.

A rule on the American share of a car, written by two, then applied to three…

At the end of the line, the still-warm sheet metal does not know which room set its percentage. The person welding it will find out from a memo.

Our plants will follow a rule they never got to read.

The three-way table

What Sheinbaum says

Mexico is not shutting the door on Canada. On September 18, asked about Ottawa, Sheinbaum answered with care.

She says Carney is making the best decisions for his country. She says Canada was about to close a deal, for reasons she knows only from what is public. She says the North American agreement has not disappeared, since it has the force of law in all three countries.

But American tariff hikes, she adds, betray the original idea. Zero tariffs on the vast majority of goods.

In mid-September, LeBlanc said he was encouraged by another wish of Sheinbaum’s, according to the National Post. All three countries at the table.

One table. Three chairs. For now, only two face each other in Washington, and ours stays pushed against the wall.

A three-way plan for electronics

Gutiérrez even opens a window. Mexico, he says, is working with the United States and Canada to replace Asian inputs with regional content, according to Mexico News Daily.

Mexico’s share of the electronics it exports to the United States hovers around 7 to 8%. Across all goods made in Mexico, it reached 44% in 2024. In electronics, Gutiérrez is aiming for 20, 30 or 40%, hand in hand with Washington and Ottawa.

The stakes are concrete. Mexico exports servers for artificial intelligence. Their content comes from Asia, mostly from Taiwan, according to Mexico News Daily.

So a three-way plan exists. It is being discussed. It has no round.

There is still a chair, if we take it.

Two curves

Thirteen percent

The one at the front of the line does not have only troubles.

Fitch raised its 2026 growth forecast for Mexico to 1.4%, from 1.0%, Latin Times reports. In the first half, Mexican exports to the United States rose 13%, according to Mexico’s statistics institute, cited by the same outlet.

Here at home, in July, exports to the United States fell 6.6% in a single month, according to Statistics Canada.

Two different periods. Two slopes.

The front of the line sells more. It still waits. So do its auto plants: their exports to the United States fell 2.7% in the first half, according to Latin Times.

The annual review

And yet Fitch also flags a brake. On July 1, Washington declined to renew the agreement for sixteen years. Its review now comes around every year, until the 2036 expiry. The uncertainty weighs on investment.

Pacheco goes further. The most likely scenario, he writes, would be a postponement of the negotiation to 2027. With investment slowing in autos, steel and aluminum.

What good is being first, if the line does not move?

Better placed does not mean better served.

First in line, not first served

What the line reveals

The trade-off comes down to two findings.

The first: being in the room does not close the list. Mexico answered 54 demands. The agenda now counts nearly 90 topics. And Section 232 has not moved.

The second: being outside the room does not shield anyone from the list. The rules written there on autos, China and regional content will cover our plants too.

The empty chair costs no tariff. It costs the pen.

And a lost pen is not recovered in the last chapter.

What stays open

We do not know whether the Mexican deal will serve as a template. We do not know when the fourth round will take place. We do not know whether the table will become three-way again, as Sheinbaum hopes.

Together, those three unknowns will decide the real price of our absence.

And yet one thing is already settled. The list will not wait for us.

Absent from the room, present on the bill.

The empty chair

October, perhaps

The fourth round will come in October, perhaps. Mexico will arrive with its answers. Washington, with its new items.

Ottawa, with its phone.

The list, meanwhile, has already changed size while we were looking elsewhere. It had 54 items. Then 14, according to Ebrard. Then nearly 90, according to his deputy minister.

The pen

That is the question Mexico’s place in line sends back to us.

Would we rather have a chair in a room where the list keeps growing, or an absence that leaves us signing what others have written?

The numbers move. Ottawa’s chair does not.

Nearly ninety topics, a growing list, and Ottawa outside.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Reuters — Mexico postpones its fourth round with Washington, September 23, 2026
• Mexican Presidency — Claudia Sheinbaum’s press conference on the Trump call, September 18, 2026
• Reuters — Greer sees no urgency with Canada, September 25, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Latin Times — Fitch, the USMCA review and Ebrard’s list, September 24, 2026
• Excélsior — Rodrigo Pacheco on the fourth round that fell through, September 24, 2026
• Mexico News Daily — Gutiérrez, the postponement and regional content, September 24, 2026