Project Portero: Initiative against smuggling networks opens up a new conflict between Mexico and the DEA
The US agency claims to be working with its Mexican partners, but Claudia Sheinbaum says that there’s no agreement that includes the DEA in the initiative
On Monday, August 18, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced “Project Portero.” In a statement, the initiative is described as one that seeks to strengthen collaboration with its Mexican partners in “the fight against the cartels” to disrupt the smuggling networks that flood American communities with “deadly synthetic drugs.” However, the following day, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denied any agreement with the DEA. “They issued the statement — we don’t know the basis for it. We haven’t reached any agreement,” she emphasized at her daily press conference.
“I learned about the statement at that same time [as you did]... as did the secretary of security [and civilian protection], the attorney general, the secretary of defense and the [secretary of the] navy,” Sheinbaum explained. The president added that — as soon as she read it — she spoke with Secretary of Security Omar García Harfuch, to ask him if any agreement had been signed with the U.S. anti-drug agency that she wasn’t aware of.
The president also complained that the announcement used the phrase “the DEA and Mexico,” as if they were entities of equal rank. “Who does the Mexican government make agreements with? With the United States government — at the same level.” And, she emphasized: “there’s no specific agreement with this U.S. agency.”
The only information available about Project Portero comes from the DEA’s statement. It’s defined as a flagship initiative aimed at dismantling “the gatekeepers” — cartel members who control the smuggling corridors through which fentanyl and cocaine flow from Mexico into the United States, with weapons and cash coming in the other direction. “By specifically targeting them, DEA and its partners are striking at the heart of cartel command-and-control,” the statement said.
What’s unclear is who those partners are. In the United States, the operation is coordinated with the National Security Task Force. Press reports claim that the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are also involved. However, on the Mexican side, according to the country’s highest authority, no institution is on board.
“We haven’t reached any agreement — none of [our] security institutions have — with the DEA,” Sheinbaum affirmed. “The only [collaboration involves a] group of police officers from the Ministry of Security and Civilian Protection who were conducting a workshop in Texas,” she added.
According to the statement, Project Portero has launched a multi-week training program at an intelligence center on its southwest border, bringing together Mexican investigators with police, prosecutors, lawyers, military officers and intelligence officials. The purpose is to develop coordinated strategies, strengthen intelligence-sharing and identify targets of interest to both countries.
The ongoing disagreement appears to be a return to the tense relationship that the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration (2018-2024) maintained with the DEA. While the governments led by Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) even saw increases in the number of U.S. agents and technicians in Mexico, López Obrador’s six-year term was marked by mutual distrust. This was crystallized in 2020 with a series of reforms to the National Security Law, which limited the activities that foreign agents can carry out in Mexico.
The arrival of Sheinbaum — with García Harfuch as plenipotentiary secretary of Security and Civilian Protection — seemed to change the situation. García Harfuch maintains good relations with U.S. agencies. And, since Donald Trump returned to the White House, operations against fentanyl trafficking have been ongoing in Mexico. Also, faced with the threat of a trade war, Mexico has extradited 55 drug traffickers in two batches to the U.S., including Rafael Caro Quintero. He has long been a priority target for the United States, due to his involvement in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
Terrance Cole, who was appointed DEA director by Trump in February of 2025, asserts that this new initiative reflects the priorities of the Republican administration. The statement reads that it recommits the DEA to “enforcement, dismantling cartels designated as terrorist organizations, and strengthening collaboration with foreign counterparts.”
“Project Portero and this new training program,” Cole affirmed, “show how we will fight — by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners.” For now, however, the plan doesn’t seem to have much traction south of the Rio Grande.
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