US drug trafficking charges against Sinaloa governor trigger political storm in Mexico

The indictment of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, a senator, and eight other high-ranking officials from that Mexican state for alleged drug trafficking conspiracy has triggered a major political crisis in Mexico. The accusations from the United States against one of the governors from the ruling Morena party have pushed the relationship between Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration and the Trump administration to the breaking point.

Trump has been pressuring Mexico for months over the influence of organized crime in the country. The indictment from New York prosecutors puts Sheinbaum in a difficult position. She can either defend a governor from her own party and risk a rupture with Trump, or hand over the leader of a state that has been engulfed in violence for more than a year due to infighting among factions of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

By requesting the arrest of the Sinaloa governor, the United States has once again set its sights on narco-politics in Mexico. This move comes after months of veiled threats and smaller actions, such as canceling visas for local officials and pressuring Mexico to accept U.S. military assistance against the cartels. But none of these measures compares to seeking the extradition of a sitting governor and state and municipal officials from the ruling party.

Jay Clayton, the New York prosecutor who filed the narcoterrorism charges against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, claims that Los Chapitos — the Sinaloa Cartel faction led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who are now in prison in the United States — helped Rubén Rocha win the 2021 elections. The indictment claims Los Chapitos did this by “kidnapping and intimidating his rivals” in exchange for assurances that it would be allowed to operate freely once Rocha took office.

The Sheinbaum administration responded on Wednesday that the indictment was submitted without supporting evidence and said it would review the document. Governor Rubén Rocha — who had already faced allegations of ties to organized crime in 2024 — denied the charges and insisted he was “calm,” saying “nothing will happen,” even as the opposition called for the dissolution of the state government.

President Sheinbaum now faces two options, both carrying enormous political costs and potential consequences for the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. “If Sheinbaum agrees to extradite the governor, she will be agreeing to extradite someone backed by her party,” explains Ernesto López Portillo, coordinator of the Citizen Security Program at the Ibero-American University. “If she refuses, she will be making a very delicate statement that will further strain relations with the United States, which will continue to operate independently, gathering intelligence in Mexico.”

This is not the first time the United States has accused a high-ranking Mexican official of collaborating with drug traffickers. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, former defense secretary Salvador Cienfuegos, a respected military officer, was arrested upon landing in Los Angeles on a trip with his family at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The matter was resolved with his repatriation after an intense diplomatic battle led by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and founder of Morena. The condition was that Cienfuegos be investigated and tried in Mexico, but the general was exonerated two months later.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is seeking sentences ranging from 40 years to life imprisonment, and the indictment is based on “high-quality information,” says López Portillo. That is, information provided firsthand from some of the 92 individuals linked to criminal organizations who the Sheinbaum government extradited to the United States.

The extradition request from the U.S. Department of Justice comes as both countries, along with Canada, are negotiating the USMCA, a trade agreement vital to Mexico, while Washington is stepping up its tariff pressure. It also follows months of interventionist rhetoric from Donald Trump, who repeatedly claims that Mexico “is controlled by the cartels.” In response, the Mexican government has tried to demonstrate — with high‑profile security operations — that it can maintain control over its own territory.

“The dilemma is clear: the president has to choose who to fight,” says analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor in a post on social media. “The United States by refusing to extradite the governor and his accomplices, or her own political allies linked to organized crime by cooperating with the justice system.”

The main risk of denying Trump’s request is that instead of following a legal process, he could resort to more unilateral or expedited methods on Mexican soil — a longstanding fear in Mexico and something President Sheinbaum has tried to contain for months. “Trump is insatiable; he won’t hesitate to impose his will on the bilateral relationship, and [if he is denied what he wants] he’ll probably come after people,” says López Portillo.

Sheinbaum herself said last week that in her conversations with Trump, he raised the offer to take action inside Mexico against the cartels. “Trump has suggested giving us more support, even including the presence of members of the United States Army, to which we have said ‘it is not necessary’ [...] We are very strict about our national sovereignty,” she said at her morning press conference.

The Mexican president was speaking in the context of the latest clash with Washington, regarding the presence of two CIA agents in a drug operation in the state of Chihuahua who entered the country without the authorization or knowledge of the federal government. What they were doing there with other Mexican agents will be determined by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, which has begun investigating the case.

In the last year, with Trump in power, interventionist pressure on all fronts toward Mexico and other Latin American countries has intensified under the guise of the crusade against drug trafficking. The U.S. president considers the region his sphere of hegemonic influence — a contemporary revival of the Monroe Doctrine. The fight against drug trafficking, efforts to curb migration, and the goal of limiting China’s influence in the hemisphere form the core of Trump’s Shield of the Americas, the alliance he unveiled a month ago alongside a dozen regional leaders aligned with those priorities.

Mexico’s strategy to withstand U.S. interventionist pressure is now at risk. Until now, the government has relied on asserting national sovereignty and showcasing major security operations against drug‑trafficking groups. The two most significant actions this year were the February operation that resulted in the death of “El Mencho,” the violent leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and Monday’s arrest of three alleged traffickers, including “El Jardinero,” a contender to lead the Jalisco organization. These arrests were made with intelligence provided by the United States.

One of the most uncomfortable questions for President Sheinbaum is whether she truly knew nothing about what was happening in a state governed by her party, despite opposition claims in 2024 that the governor had ties to organized crime. At the time, all Morena governors rallied around him and signed a statement of support. Now, U.S. prosecutors say they have gathered evidence pointing to narcopolitics, although Sheinbaum’s government says it has not yet been shown that evidence.

“Beyond the pressure from Trump, Mexico is in a colossal crisis of violence and crime fueled by impunity,” argues López Portillo. “If major changes are not made, we will remain vulnerable to pressure from the United States.” It is a dynamic that already reflects a deeply unequal relationship now pushed to breaking point.

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