The Pentagon has announced the deployment of 3,000 active duty soldiers to the Mexican border. The Stryker Brigade Combat Team will, Saturday’s statement declared, “reinforce and expand current border security operations to seal the border and protect the territorial integrity of the United States”.

The timing of this announcement is curious: the number of migrants illegally crossing the border in February plummeted to the lowest monthly level this century. Just 8,000 migrants crossed the border illegally, according to preliminary data from the US Customs and Border Protection. Indeed, crossings have hit such a low that a priest working with migrants claimed that “migrant shelters are going into hibernation.” He attributed this in part to the Trump administration scrapping the CBP One app, which allowed migrants to arrive via a port of entry. But the main reason, he said, was Mexico stopping crossings and returning migrants in its northern states to the south of the country.

Sending troops to the southern border seems moot with the collapse of illegal migrant crossings. But it reinforces the MAGA narrative of taking control of the southwestern border. The US President campaigned on promises to close the border, stopping migrants and fentanyl. He has wielded the threat of 25% tariffs to force Mexican compliance on migration and security matters, imposing them today along with others on Canada and China. Even though Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded carefully, threatening retaliatory tariffs. The truth is that she’s quietly agreeing to US demands in private and taking actions to avoid further tariffs, which would cripple Mexico’s export-focused economy.

Mexico has complied with many of Trump’s demands, stopping record numbers of migrants, handing over 29 drug cartel bosses after years of delays, and even allowing US drone flights over Mexican territory. The Mexican President appears to have abandoned the “hugs, not bullets” security strategy of her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office last year, by carrying out more than 10,000 arrests of high-profile targets, seizing 90 tonnes of drugs, and routinely decommissioning synthetic drug labs. The country has even proposed matching tariffs on Chinese imports, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The question, though, is whether all this is enough. More than 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the United States and it cannot afford further economic hurdles. Mexico had already been taking a tougher approach to migrants before Trump took office, detaining record numbers after the Biden administration closed a pair of rail bridges into Texas, hampering cross-border trade.

So we should expect Mexico to continue serving up tangible wins for Trump, without Sheinbaum’s government losing face. She has skilfully handled Trump, who told reporters: “President Sheinbaum is a woman I like very much.” This is important because, to borrow Trump’s phrase, Mexico does not have many cards right now. “There’s absolutely nothing left to give Trump,” says Federico Estévez, political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “He’s left Mexico with absolutely nothing to do but to grin and bear it.”