--- title: Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal? description: President Donald Trump may have an agreement with Mexico to commit to more "burden-sharing" on the handling of refugees. canonical: https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/ author: Madeleine Joung article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-06-11T19:51:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T23:43:12.636Z article:section: Politics og:title: Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal? og:description: He held up a folded piece of paper before reporters og:url: https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt685b468ae312416f/69894b0cb21a9c4c48500ba1/trump-mexico-deal-paper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5094 og:image:height: 2865 og:image:alt: President Trump Mexico Deal Paper og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal? twitter:description: He held up a folded piece of paper before reporters twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt685b468ae312416f/69894b0cb21a9c4c48500ba1/trump-mexico-deal-paper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal? > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Madeleine Joung](https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/) ## Madeleine Joung Jun 11, 2019 7:51 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing for a trip to Iowa, on the South Lawn of White House on Tuesday, June 11, 2019 in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing for a trip to Iowa, on the South Lawn of White House on Tuesday, June 11, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Evan Vucci—AP by [Madeleine Joung](https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/) ## Madeleine Joung Jun 11, 2019 7:51 PM UTC President Donald Trump may have an agreement with Mexico to commit to more “burden-sharing” on the handling of refugees fleeing violence and poor economic conditions in Central America. In recent days, Trump has claimed that he has a significant agreement with Mexico in addition to the publicly known terms of a deal announced Friday, but declined to give any details. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday morning, he pulled out a folded piece of paper as evidence. “That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have. I’m going to let Mexico do the announcement at the right time,” he said as he was leaving the White House to travel to a campaign event in Iowa. “This is one page of a very long and very good agreement from Mexico and the United States.” Close-up photographs of the paper reveal that it discusses “burden sharing in relation to the processing of refugees” — likely a reference to some kind of policy that would keep migrants seeking asylum in Mexico or elsewhere instead of the U.S. > [](https://twitter.com/jabinbotsford/status/1138511047801942017) The Trump Administration has sought a policy called “safe third country,” a dramatic shift in which migrants would be required to seek asylum in Mexico rather than the U.S. Another option would be a regional agreement including Mexico and other Latin American countries to assume responsibilities for asylum-seekers. **Read More:** [_President Trump Wants Asylum Seekers to Stay in Mexico. Here’s How That Would Work_](http://time.com/5604189/donald-trump-mexico-deal-safe-third-country/) After threatening tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t do more to help with the migrant crisis, Trump backed down on Friday, saying that he had a deal. After the New York _Times_ [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html) that two major provisions of Friday’s deal with Mexico had already been previously agreed to, Trump said Sunday that more was to come. “Importantly, some things, not mentioned in yesterday\[‘s\] press release, one in particular, were agreed upon,” he [tweeted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137697506454835200). “That will be announced at the appropriate time.” But Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign minister, [said on Monday](https://www.apnews.com/7bedd8e672dd4f6ca3ffe2b3fd78fe0f) that “there is no other thing beyond \[the previously announced terms\].” Both Ebrard and the document in the president’s hand referenced a reevaluation of the effectiveness of the agreed-upon measures in 45 days. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/"},"headline":"Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal?","datePublished":"2019-06-11T19:51:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T23:43:12.636Z","description":"President Donald Trump may have an agreement with Mexico to commit to more \"burden-sharing\" on the handling of refugees.","url":"https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/","keywords":["Immigration","Mexico","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt685b468ae312416f/69894b0cb21a9c4c48500ba1/trump-mexico-deal-paper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Madeleine Joung","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt685b468ae312416f/69894b0cb21a9c4c48500ba1/trump-mexico-deal-paper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Mexico Deal Paper","caption":"Donald Trump","creditText":"Evan Vucci—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/immigration/","name":"Immigration"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5604832/donald-trump-mexico-tariffs-immigration/","name":"Did Donald Trump Inadvertently Reveal a Secret Mexico Deal?"}}]}] ```