ABSTRACT
Global relations are defined by iterative though not always predictable entanglements between economic and racial projects. Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico has been defined by a cross-border neoliberal economic project consisting of deregulation, capital mobility, and reduced barriers to trade and a series of racial projects deployed to manage labor and migration from Mexico. By examining Donald Trump’s position on immigration and trade with Mexico, I show how his administration’s approach toward U.S.–Mexico relations is assembled from an available repertoire of policy discourses and practices that have long formed part of the complex and unequal relationship between the two countries. Rather than inaugurating a new era, the Trump administration has rearticulated the balance between trade and migration policy giving greater valance to an already existing racist logic that underpins both policy domains. Ultimately, the chapter suggests that the neoliberal economic and racial projects that define U.S.–Mexico relations are both durable and malleable.
