WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said he would name Ronald Johnson as his ambassador to Mexico, selecting a former appointee to manage one of the most important U.S. relationships through escalating tensions over immigration and trade.

“Ron will work closely with our great Secretary of State Nominee, Marco Rubio, to promote our Nation’s security and prosperity through strong America First Foreign Policies,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform Tuesday night.

Johnson, an Army veteran who worked for the CIA, served as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador during Trump’s first term. He will have to navigate a complicated relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor, as Mexico has long been a punching bag for Trump on issues such as immigration, trade and drug smuggling.

Yet Mexico is under new management, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s election this year portending a cordial but firm stance with her incoming counterpart to the north. Or, in her own words: “coordination without subordination.”

The Mexican president — a climate scientist whose views often clash with Trump’s — surprised the American president-elect in their first telephone call in November by speaking in fluent English, an ability that sets her apart among her contemporaries in Latin America’s largest economies. Trump called it a “wonderful” conversation.

Still, tensions have flared from the outset. Trump claimed that Sheinbaum agreed in the phone call to close the U.S.-Mexico border. Sheinbaum said she agreed to no such thing.

Trump has threatened to use tariffs as leverage, saying he will impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico as soon as he’s inaugurated “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country.”

Sheinbaum has countered by promising “a response in kind,” but said that a tariff war would only hurt U.S. companies — like General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV’s Chrysler brand — that have major assembly plants and suppliers in Mexico.

Sheinbaum said she’s negotiating an agreement that would have her country take back deported Mexican nationals, while deported non-Mexicans would not travel though the country.

Trump highlighted the importance of Mexico to his foreign policy agenda when he picked Christopher Landau, his former ambassador to Mexico, as the No. 2 diplomat at the State Department. In choosing Landau for deputy secretary of state, Trump said he “worked tirelessly with our team to reduce illegal migration to the lowest levels in History.”

The ambassador to Mexico usually comes from the ranks of career foreign service officers, but political appointees have also served. The present ambassador is Ken Salazar, a former Interior secretary and Democratic senator from Colorado.

Johnson retired from the Army with the rank of colonel in 1998. He held various roles at the CIA, including special adviser to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami managing collaboration among various federal agencies.

Kimberly Breier, who served as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the first Trump administration, called Johnson “deeply knowledgeable on the region and will be excellent in recalibrating the U.S.-Mexico bilateral security relationship that is urgently in need of a refresh. This is a great pick.”

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(With assistance from Eric Martin.)

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