Sheinbaum responds to the ‘total elimination’ of cartels announced by the US: ‘Let them start with their country’

Tensions between the United States and Mexico since Donald Trump returned to the White House present a new chapter every day. President Claudia Sheinbaum responded on Friday morning to the latest, which deals with the fight against the drug-trafficking cartels. The U.S. Department of Justice has asked for speed in the judicial proceedings against drug lords, as well as the “total elimination” of these criminal organizations. In what seems to be a common desire lies a new bilateral crisis, since the war against organized crime posed in these terms would imply interference by U.S. agencies and security forces in Mexican territory, hence Sheinbaum’s reaction at her morning press conference: “Let them start with their country. Don’t you have cartels there, don’t they have organized crime there? They have a lot to do in the United States,” the Mexican president said.

Newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued a document urging the “total elimination” of the cartels and is considering, according to some sources, appointing a special envoy to fight fentanyl trafficking in Mexico to strangle the economic and business development of organized crime. But the possibility, expressed by Trump on occasions in different terms, that U.S. security agents could operate on Mexican soil or extradite criminals opens a new front with Mexico. The capture of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, last summer opened a wound that has yet to heal between the two countries. Zambada, authorities believe, was betrayed by his godson, Joaquín “El Güero” Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, kidnapped in Mexico, put on a light aircraft and detained upon landing in the United States, although the full facts of the strange operation have not yet been fully clarified.

“It is not enough to stem the tide of deadly poisons, such as fentanyl, that these groups distribute in our homeland,” reads the Justice Department document that was made public Wednesday. Bondi recalled the Republican’s words when he took office on January 20: “President Trump directed the federal government to revise existing national security and counter-narcotics strategies to pursue total elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations.” Asked about this, Sheinbaum reacted with another set of allegations that shifted the blame to the U.S. side: “What happens [with fentanyl] after the border? Who is in charge of distributing the drug? Who sells it in the cities of the United States? Where does the money from the sale of that drug go there?” she said. The Mexican government believes that there is no single person responsible for the fentanyl problem and that the United States has not done enough previously, and is not doing enough now, to stop the scourge that is killing thousands of people every year.

Despite this, and in view of the tense bilateral relations following Trump’s return to power, Sheinbaum elected not to go any further until the text of the Justice Department document is clarified, which, in her opinion, is still “not well understood.”

Bondi, who was confirmed in office Wednesday, is very close to Trump and immediately set to work following the doctrine of the Republican magnate. The document also contains instructions for prosecutors to seek more death sentences and to prioritize issues related to immigration.

The Republican’s biggest battles, at least those he expresses frequently in public, are intrinsically linked to the policies of Mexico, with which the U.S. shares a vast border through which migrants and drugs moved by the large cartels enter, but also via which thousands of weapons of enormous firepower travel in the opposite direction to supply organized crime. That is the great reproach the Mexican government reiterates to Washington. The agreement to suspend the implementation of tariffs on Mexican trade was accompanied by several conditions, among them that Mexico would send 10,000 more agents to the border to monitor the illegal transfer of people and drugs, something that the Sheinbaum government has hastily put into effect. In exchange, the United States promised to combat the illegal sale and trafficking of arms. Nothing is yet known about what steps will be taken in that direction by the Trump administration.

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