Since the early nineties, Mexico and the United States broadly agreed on building a strategic relationship, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as its backbone. This objective was disrupted with the accession to power of Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Under the Sheinbaum and Trump 2.0 administrations, relations between Mexico and the United States have been active, tense, and volatile, but overall polite. Governments are presently engaged in complex negotiations on trade, security, and migration. The current conditions raise important questions: is a successful review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) likely in the coming months? Is a new security cooperation framework possible? And more broadly, where could the overall bilateral relationship be heading in the long term?

About the Speaker

Gerónimo Gutiérrez served for over 20 years in senior government positions under five Mexican presidents, in the areas of finance, trade, national security, and diplomacy. Most recently, he served as Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States, where he played a prominent role in the negotiation of the USMCA. He presently works as Managing Partner at BEEL Infrastructure, an advisory and asset management firm based in Mexico City, and as a Senior Advisor at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington D.C., providing strategic advice to businesses on political and regulatory risk, corporate diplomacy, communications, and business development.

He teaches the course “Contemporary Issues of the U.S.-Mexico Relationship” at George Washington University’s Elliott School, contributes opinion articles to several Mexican and U.S. newspapers and magazines, and regularly participates as a speaker at conferences on Mexico’s political landscape and U.S.-Mexico affairs. Gerónimo lives in Washington D.C. and frequently spends time in Mexico and Texas.