Remittance trends to Mexico before and after the Trump 2.0 era: Determinants beyond traditional migration

Abstract

Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency in 2025 marks a turning point in regional migration dynamics, paradoxically coinciding with record levels of remittances received in Mexico: $64.7 billion in 2024, equivalent to 4% of the country’s GDP. This article argues that the historical relationship between Mexican emigration and currency flows has lost its explanatory power, since while the former has stabilized since the mid-2000s, remittances have continued to grow exponentially. Through a quantitative analysis of the period 1995-2025, it is proposed that this boom responds to a multifactorial phenomenon where the following converge: 1) the digitization and greater banking of remittances; 2) the reduction of migratory circularity due to tighter border control; 3) the loss of purchasing power due to the appreciation of the peso; and 4) the emergence of “transit remittances” intended to finance the mobility and subsistence of foreigners in Mexican territory. The central thesis suggests that, in the face of the Trump administration’s policies of greater migration control and border externalization, remittances have not only ceased to be a purely family-based flow, but have also become a critical financing mechanism for irregular migration. Thus, if the increase/decrease in remittances is a multifactorial phenomenon, their decline also has multiple effects beyond the Mexican households that receive these resources.