‘El Mayo’ Zambada’s arrest strains bilateral relationship between US and Mexico

The fall of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the capo of Mexico’s drug lords, was celebrated in the United States as an unprecedented victory in the so-called war on drugs. The DEA, the FBI and the Justice Department were all chest-thumping after delivering what they called a “blow to the heart” of the Sinaloa Cartel. On the other side of the border, there has been much less enthusiasm. Almost two weeks after the arrest, Mexico still does not know precisely how El Mayo and Joaquín Guzmán López, one of El Chapo’s sons, ended up on a plane that landed in El Paso, Texas. In addition to the doubts surrounding the case, there are other questions about the message sent by Washington with El Mayo’s detention, the information the White House had before the arrest, and the suspicion of an extraterritorial operation. The mystery has had an impact on the bilateral relationship, adding a new layer to the distrust that prevails between the security agencies of both countries.

The capture of El Mayo, who had not set foot in a jail in the more than five decades of his criminal career, was a victory scored by U.S. authorities separately and without the help of their Mexican partners. Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged that his government was not informed until minutes after the arrest took place on July 25 and the Mexican president has insisted that none of his agencies was involved in the operation.

Mexican authorities have requested a formal report from their U.S. counterparts through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General’s Office, under the premise that Washington must “make everything transparent” and clarify its actions on Mexican territory. The official version is that it was an agreed surrender, at least in the case of Guzmán López. “The United States government itself has acknowledged that they carried out a negotiation, at least, with one of the two, with Joaquín Guzmán López, that is what they informed us,” said López Obrador on Tuesday. “It seems that it was an agreement.”

“If it had been Trump, it would be more normal, but with Biden the Mexican government had maintained a policy of cooperation in the security sphere with dialogues at the highest level that suggested trust, exchange of information, and coordinated work against fentanyl. All of that has been unilaterally broken,” says Pia Taracena, international analyst at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

For the specialist, El Mayo’s arrest represents a change of tone and a sign that patience has run out in the fight against drug trafficking, a decisive issue in the campaign for the U.S. presidential election in November. Taracena does not doubt that U.S. security agencies have plenty of room to act on their own, but few believe that the White House was unaware of the operation against El Mayo (or of his surrender). “The DEA has its own vendetta against the cartels. Either they entered [Mexico] or they got him out by subterfuge, but they do have their own ways of operating in Mexico.”

The electoral scenario in the United States is an issue to take into account, but there are other factors. Elections on the northern side of the Rio Bravo always leave their ripples on the other shore. In addition to Trump’s bluster about migrants, walls and deportations, on this occasion a key factor has been added — fentanyl — which causes more than 80,000 deaths a year in the United States, a public health epidemic that all candidates want to tackle. And the capture of El Mayo has hung that medal around the Democrats’ neck, achieved quickly and cleanly, without the need to fire a single bullet. The consensus among analysts is that the coup, despite its symbolic weight and political capital, will have no effect on drug flows, although it does set a precedent on the limits Washington is willing to cross and on its actions in the most sensitive missions: without mutual trust there is no cooperation in security matters.

Martha Bárcena, who was Mexican ambassador to the United States in the current six-year term and is now retired, believes that the diplomatic frictions that have ended with the capture of El Mayo began with the arrest of General Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States in October 2020. The controversy over the case against Enrique Peña Nieto’s Secretary of Defense escalated with his exoneration and the enactment of a 2021 law that imposed limits on the actions of foreign agents, which brought tension with the DEA to a head. “The only thing that this law achieved was to hinder cooperation and further break the trust between the two countries,” she says.

The open confrontation with the DEA deepened a few months ago after a wave of leaks concerning alleged links among López Obrador’s inner circle and organized crime. His government has also clashed with the U.S. State Department, accusing it of having “double standards” and “extending letters of good conduct to countries and to independent and sovereign peoples.” Mexico’s sovereignty was at the center of both disputes and has become one of the main questions surrounding Zambada, especially after his lawyer, Frank Perez, claimed that at least six men in military uniforms were present during his client’s alleged kidnapping.

López Obrador’s outbursts had been considered as messages for internal consumption, which did not compromise cooperation in strategic areas. There was even the notion that the Biden administration had been receptive to Mexican demands to be treated as equal partners, a spirit that has materialized, at least in discourse, in initiatives such as the Bicentennial Framework. In Bárcena’s opinion, however, Mexico has not been prudent enough. “It has come too close to the red line, or has already crossed it,” she says.

On this occasion, López Obrador has also adjusted his tone and opted for a much more restrained response. Mexican authorities have attempted a balancing act following the arrest, on the understanding that it is not appropriate to air disagreements with the United States given the political-electoral context in both countries, and that the disclosure of some details of the arrest could result in a backlash from the Sinaloa Cartel or other rival groups.

Under this assumption, the lack of clarity in the official version of El Mayo’s detention — and the delegation of responsibility for the story to Washington — has played in Mexico’s favor, especially in the face of sectors of the population that do not look favorably on a violation of sovereignty or a show of force from the other side of the border. One of the readings is that, for the moment, it is more important to keep the peace. The robust trade relationship between the two countries and other open fronts such as migration, an issue that has proven inescapable, also weigh in favor of a more pragmatic position.

Another interpretation of how the Mexican government has conducted itself is influenced by the information that El Mayo — a capo with extensive political influence and a vast network of contacts in Mexico’s security forces — may share with U.S. authorities. The precedent of Genaro García Luna, Felipe Calderon’s drug czar convicted of collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel, and that of Cienfuegos himself, indicates that U.S. agencies are also targeting the collusion between drug traffickers and Mexican politicians. “Of course, if they are going to report on their ties with Mexican authorities, it helps to know how much support they gave to the authorities, to report who protected them, all this will help a lot, and it will also help with the agreements with U.S. agencies,” said López Obrador, who has ruled out any damage to his government by what the drug lord may reveal.

The Mexican president has asked not to indulge in speculation until the United States offers a more complete picture of what happened. Between versions of an agreed surrender or a betrayal, the silence of the Biden administration still leaves the main questions unanswered. Despite the noise caused by El Mayo’s capture, the climate of the bilateral relationship, especially in the most sensitive areas, will ultimately depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and the new government of Claudia Sheinbaum, which will take office on October 1. The arrest, however, has been a turning point for the next steps to be taken by both countries.

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