Canada’s exclusion from the latest United States–Mexico trade negotiations should prompt a broader reassessment of Ottawa’s approach to the continent. The Trump administration is attempting to reorganize the hemisphere around a more openly coercive conception of American power: negotiating separately with its neighbours, exploiting their unequal dependence on the US market and pressuring both to limit their relationships with China. Canada and Mexico face different immediate pressures, but their underlying problem is increasingly similar. Neither country can afford to let Washington pit them against one another or dictate the terms of their relationships with other states.

Washington Is Trying to Divide Its Neighbours

The United States and Mexico have begun formal bilateral discussions on revisions to CUSMA, without Canada in the initial rounds. Washington is seeking stricter automotive rules of origin, including higher North American content requirements and a larger US-specific share of vehicle production.

CUSMA remains a trilateral agreement, but Washington appears willing to negotiate separately with its neighbours and use bilateral pressure to reshape continental integration. Auto-industry officials told Reuters that the United States may seek an agreement with Mexico on US-specific automotive-content rules, then present the resulting terms to Canada as a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition.

The sovereignty dispute comes at an awkward moment for Washington. The United States is pressing Mexico to restrict trade and investment linked to China, even though Mexico has already imposed tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports, including automobiles, auto parts, steel and textiles. China has warned that it reserves the right to retaliate, while Chinese firms continue to show interest in Mexican manufacturing capacity.

That pressure is now intersecting with a broader sovereignty dispute. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has accused the United States of political interference following the US Department of Justice’s indictment of ten Mexican officials, including Rubén Rocha Moya, the elected governor of Sinaloa, on alleged drug-trafficking charges. Sheinbaum’s government has argued that Washington has not presented compelling evidence and that........

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