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The incoming administration rejected requests from Mexico for a formal meeting, insisting that detailed discussions will begin only after Mr. Trump is sworn in next Monday, according to a Mexican official and two people familiar with the exchanges, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Guatemalan and Honduran governments received similar messages, according to officials from those countries.

“That’s not how things usually work,” said Eric L. Olson, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and the Mexico Institute. “Usually there are more informal contacts and some level of discussion eventually.”

The incoming administration may want to limit the confrontation before ramping up the pressure by signing a flurry of executive orders on migration, analysts say, leaving governments in the region scrambling to respond. That would likely strengthen Washington’s hand in the upcoming negotiations.

“At the moment we can’t talk about concrete measures because we haven’t had any specific conversations about immigration policies with the incoming authorities,” Santiago Palomo, a spokesman for Guatemala’s president, said in an interview about how his country is preparing to respond to Mr. Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States was in contact with Trump’s transition team, officials said, but members of the incoming administration had not communicated specific plans around a ramp-up in deportations or how Guatemala should prepare.

Honduran government officials also said they had not yet had significant contact with the incoming Trump administration. Earlier this month, President Xiomara Castro of Honduras threatened to push the US military out of a base it built decades ago in the Central American country if Mr. Trump is carrying out mass deportations.

Considering Mr. Trump’s sharp focus on Latin America, the lack of clarity about his goals has rattled regional governments.

The incoming administration has said it wants to restore the “Remain in Mexico” policy implemented during the first Trump term, which forces some migrants to wait in Mexico instead of the United States while their asylum cases are pending. Mr. Trump has also said he intends to declare a national emergency and use the US military in some form to aid in his plans for mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.

“President Trump will enlist every federal authority and coordinate with state authorities to launch the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers in American history,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team, wrote in an email to The New York Times. She did not respond to questions about whether the incoming administration has rejected Mexico’s and other countries’ requests for meetings.

Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said her administration does not approve of the mass deportation program. “Of course we don’t agree,” she said at a press conference on Wednesday. “However, in the event of such a decision by the US government, we are prepared.”

But when asked how the country will respond, her response has been evasive — though she recently signaled the country’s willingness to accept some non-Mexican deportees.

“We will ask the United States that the migrants who are not from Mexico can be sent to their countries of origin as much as possible – and if not, we can cooperate through various mechanisms,” she told reporters earlier this month. .

Some analysts said that Mr. Trump’s team may be limiting their meetings with Latin American governments because of concerns about violating the Logan Act. That law forces incoming administrations to limit the scope of their negotiations with foreign governments until they take office, so as not to undermine sitting US presidents.

But previous incoming administrations have met with foreign governments to carefully discuss their policy goals without violating the law.

Either way, the act has done little to deter Mr. Trump’s appetite to meet with his future colleagues. Since his election in November, Mr. Trump met separately with the leaders of Italy, Canada and Argentina at his Mar-a-Lago hotel.

Despite the lack of contact, Mr. Trump has made his foreign policy goals clear through speeches and on social media, giving Mexican and other regional governments some insight into potential U.S. policies in the pipeline.

“Trump has signaled publicly that migration is a top priority, and so are tariffs,” Mr. Olson.

Shortly after his election victory, Mr. Trump to slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t do more to curb migration and the flow of narcotics.

“But there are no clear mechanisms for the Trump administration on how to engage in dialogue and negotiation. That will be resolved soon enough when he takes office,” Mr. Olson added.

The incoming US administration will likely try to get Latin American countries to agree to accept asylum seekers from other nations who seek refuge in the US, known as “safe third country agreements.” The first Trump administration was able to get Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to sign these pacts, although the policy was only implemented in Guatemala, albeit fleetingly.

But those deals may be harder to make this time around. President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala told the Associated Press this week: “We are not a safe third country, no one has suggested that.”

His foreign minister, Carlos Ramírez Martínez, said in an interview that he expected his government to face pressure. “I have no doubt it will come,” he said.

Officials in El Salvador have said that they will work with the Trump administration to protect the status of Salvadorans in the United States. “We are working so that migration can be an option and not an obligation,” Cindy Portal, a senior State Department official, said in a television interview Wednesday.

Without clarity from the transition team, some Latin American leaders are instead crafting a unified response in anticipation of any executive order related to immigration or deportations issued when Mr. Trump takes office.

Representatives from several regional governments gathered in Mexico City this week to discuss “the opportunities and challenges of migration in the region and the strengthening of coordination and cooperation,” according to a Guatemalan government statement on the meeting.

The agenda, although heavy on migration, did not mention Mr. Trump.

Jody García contributed reporting from Guatemala City; Joan Suazo of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; and Gabriel Labrador from San Salvador, El Salvador. James Wagner, Paulina Villegas, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Simon Romero contributed from Mexico City; Mary Triny Zea of ​​Panama City; Julie Turkewitz of Bogotá, Colombia; Hogla Enecia Pérez of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Ed Augustin of Havana, Cuba; and Lucía Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires, Argentina.