Trump Pushes to Cancel Mexico World Cup Over Safety

Mexico — Citing instability and security risks for the 2026 World Cup in Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump is exerting strong pressure on FIFA to reschedule matches assigned to Mexican territory and modify the trinational host arrangement so that the soccer event only takes place in U.S. and Canadian cities.

Trump’s pressures, which have intensified amid social protests, political assassinations, and drug trafficking violence affecting much of the country, have led FIFA to demand that Mexico take “urgent and immediate” measures to ensure that its internal problems—social, security, logistical, and even corruption—do not affect the proper development of the World Cup. This has put the Mexican government under strain as it juggles to convince the sports organization and Trump that the country is a safe and reliable host for the international event.

Federal security sources comment that, in response to the pressures and demands, a series of events, meetings, and analysis forums are being organized. These review national and international protocols for mass events, analyze options for cutting-edge technology for stadium security, and design strategies to convince both FIFA organizers and neighbors in the United States and Canada that Mexico guarantees a well-organized and peaceful World Cup.

For example, today at the federal government’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Participation, a “Seminar” has been convened, attended by several independent experts invited by the office of Secretary Omar García Harfuch. They will present papers and analysis tables on topics such as “security in the realization of mass events” and “surveillance and risk detection systems,” among other issues that federal security officials will discuss with the experts summoned for this seminar.

In general, the entire security cabinet has been put to work identifying “risks and problems” that could arise during the World Cup. According to sources, these range from “demonstrations or protests” by groups critical of the regime to preventing any type of terrorist event or attack, based on records of infiltration into Mexican territory by radical and terrorist groups that enter, in many cases, through the southern border.

The problem for Mexico is that it must not only convince and reassure FIFA, which recently raised alarms after news that at least 17 clandestine graves were found near the Akron Stadium in Guadalajara, where human remains required up to 456 bags to be removed from the site, as reported by the Mothers’ Search Collectives of Jalisco.

In addition to the White House, which has openly proposed canceling the Mexican host and rescheduling matches in its territory, Canada has also joined the pressure on Mexico for the same security and narco-violence reasons. Proof of this is the “travel alert” that the government of Mark Carney unusually issued last Thursday to all Canadian citizens planning to travel to Mexico this winter, warning them of “high levels of organized crime violence” and asking them to avoid travel to 14 Mexican states and, if they decide to go, to “take extreme precautions in Mexico.”

The states cited by the Canadian government were Chiapas, except for Palenque, Tuxtla, and San Cristóbal; all of Chihuahua, except the capital; Colima, where they advise avoiding most of the state and only Manzanillo if accessed by air; Guanajuato, with alerts in all areas south of highways 43D and 45D; in Guerrero, not to visit Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo, only with air access; Jalisco with restrictions in areas within a 50 km radius of the border with Michoacán; Michoacán itself, which places the entire state on alert except for Morelia and Pátzcuaro; Morelos, specifically the Zempoala Lagunas National Park; Nayarit, restriction in zones less than 20 km from the border with Sinaloa and Durango; Nuevo León, the entire state except Monterrey; Sinaloa, allowing Los Mochis and specific areas of Mazatlán (Historic Center, Golden Zone, Cerritos, and airport accesses) but not the rest of the state; Sonora, all except Hermosillo, Guaymas/San Carlos, and Puerto Peñasco; Tamaulipas, the entire state except Tampico; and Zacatecas, the entire entity except the capital.

Although President Claudia Sheinbaum dismissed the Canadian government’s “travel alert” and said it “is of no use” because many Canadians will still come to Mexico, the fact is that the Carney government’s decision was not a whim and aligns with the push by the United States and Canada to question the viability, and especially the security and tranquility, that Mexico can guarantee as a host of this shared World Cup.

But the President’s public response contrasts with what, according to security sources, is happening inside the government and cabinet, where there is nervousness and concern that FIFA will buy the arguments and heed the pressures of Donald Trump and Mark Carney to cancel the Mexican host. So much so that the World Cup issue has become a “priority” in security and logistics matters, with the doctor’s instruction to address and counter each of the demands and doubts of the International Federation of Football.

To date, in the history of the World Cups, there is only one precedent of a designated host being canceled by FIFA: the case of Colombia in 1982. Faced with the situation of instability and drug trafficking violence the country was experiencing at that time, they opted to decline the host that had been granted to them to organize the 1986 World Cup, leading the FIFA Executive Committee to meet in Switzerland in 1983 and award the new host to Mexico, which thus became the first country to host a World Cup twice. Will the Colombian history repeat itself now, and will Mexico have to renounce the World Cup host due to Trump’s pressures? Or will the Sheinbaum government manage to avoid a cancellation by addressing all the demands of the White House and FIFA to ensure that the political, social, and especially narco-violence situation does not tarnish the World Cup?