Trump threatens to double tariffs on Mexico over migrant caravans
The warning came on Truth Social with no deadline and no legal mechanism. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum replied that no caravan has reached the U.S. border since he returned to office.
President Donald Trump said on Truth Social on Thursday that "huge caravans" of migrants are forming and marching through Mexico. If Mexico does not stop them "now," he wrote, tariffs on Mexico will be "IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED."
The post sets no deadline. It does not say which tariffs he would double or under what legal authority. It says Mexico, the Texas government, Border Patrol and ICE have been informed.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum answered at her daily morning press conference. No migrant caravan has reached the northern border since Trump took office, she said. Most migrants, she added, go back to their home countries.
The warning coincides with the departure of a group of Central American migrants from Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas. Counts differ: about 1,500 people by some tallies, close to 2,000 by others. There is no official figure.
The risk for Mexico is commercial. Double tariffs would hit exports that depend on the U.S. market and, through the exchange rate, raise what Mexico pays for imports. For now there is no signed order behind the threat, and Washington has not formally answered Sheinbaum.
Trump has tied tariffs to migration before. In November 2024, before taking office, he threatened a 25% tariff on Mexican goods. Sheinbaum responded then with a letter and a phone call.
