Trump puts the DEA in the line of attack to put more pressure on Sheinbaum

Donald Trump’s art of negotiation relies heavily on the art of pushing his counterparts — Mexico in this case — to the limit. Just when, according to President Claudia Sheinbaum, it seemed that the relationship between the two nations was based on respect among equals and non-subordination, Trump launched a new challenge this week to pressure Mexico and extract even more security benefits from Washington’s main trading partner. The U.S. president’s main focus has been the DEA, which Mexico considers one of its greatest political enemies, given the agency’s history of interventionism on Mexican soil. Trump’s latest provocation comes at a time when both countries are preparing a general agreement on bilateral security. Experts agree that the Republican is following his usual pressure-and-release strategy, although they point out that Mexico can take advantage of Washington’s willingness to crack down on criminal groups and clean house.

The latest disagreement relates to a supposed joint security program, Project Portero, which, according to the DEA itself, consisted of training Mexican agents to “dismantle” organized crime organizations operating along the border, especially on the western side, where the largest number of illicit crossings of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine into the United States occur. The anti-drug agency claimed that the training would take place in U.S. police schools and would be taught by its military, prosecutors, and intelligence officials. Sheinbaum, in response, downgraded the training, describing it as “a workshop in Texas” for only four Mexican investigators. Basically, the president denied that relations with the DEA had been reestablished, after they had entered a phase of cooling and then hostility during the administration of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who limited the scope of covert operations by foreign agents in Mexico.

“The DEA has been burned in Mexico, unlike other institutions, such as the Department of Homeland Security or the Pentagon, which have a more stable relationship and good communication with this country. The Mexican government hears ‘DEA’ and it seems like the devil has arrived; they want nothing to do with them,” says security specialist Raúl Benítez Manaut. The academic from the Center for North American Research at UNAM believes that the relaunching of the DEA in Mexico is consistent with Trump’s reinforced interventionist policy in Mexico. “Why doesn’t Mexico want the DEA? Because they’re constantly announcing that there are narco-politicians, and because, according to Mexico — and it has a point — they have been heavily involved in interventionist actions. But now that’s Trump’s tune. If there is interventionist action in Mexico, the president will tell them, ‘Keep going,’” says the researcher.

Benítez Manaut points out that the U.S. anti-drug agency is in a power struggle with its counterparts south of the border. “The DEA also has resentment toward Mexico,” he notes. Sheinbaum recalled two prime examples that, according to the Mexican president, illustrate the excesses committed by the U.S. agency: the operation in which drug trafficker Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed in Morelos in 2009, after which a bloody manhunt was unleashed against the families of the Mexican officers who participated, and the capture and indictment for drug trafficking of former secretary of defense Salvador Cienfuegos in 2021. This latter case caused enormous discomfort to then-president López Obrador, who reformed the Constitution to limit the free rein that the PRI and PAN governments gave U.S. agents in Mexico.

Internationalist Arturo Rocha warns that this chess move involving the DEA knight shows that, for Trump, Mexico’s undeniable merits in terms of security are not enough. Sheinbaum’s government has reduced migration flows to historic lows, made unprecedented seizures of fentanyl, captured numerous drug traffickers, and extradited 50 high-profile criminals to the U.S., all at Trump’s request since January. But, at the same time, Washington is pressuring and sanctioning three Mexican banks it accuses of laundering drug money, expressly authorizing the U.S. army to attack criminal groups beyond its borders — with the threats to Mexican sovereignty that this entails — and denouncing acts of corruption within Pemex, the state-owned oil company that Sheinbaum is trying to refloat.

“There is indeed an ambition on the part of the United States to do more. The United States is saying that this cooperation, which it recognizes, which it applauds, and which has given us a lot of diplomatic capital with different entities in that country, is at the same time not enough,” says Rocha. The specialist, who was Coordinator of North American Strategy at the Foreign Ministry during López Obrador’s six-year term, believes that, currently, “Mexico is more necessary to the United States” than other countries, within the framework of Trump’s geopolitical struggle against the world. This, he points out, gives Mexico an advantage and strengthens it against the U.S. president.

“It’s clear that there are some factions within [ruling party] Morena with ties to criminal organizations. President Sheinbaum can take advantage of the geopolitical and national landscape to put her house in order,” Rocha points out. “Fighting corruption and crime will give her even more legitimacy, and simultaneously give her credibility, space, and time in Washington to show that the security strategy isn’t one of fear of the cartels — as Trump has claimed — but rather a more comprehensive proposal to confront organized crime and its tentacles in the government."

Rocha emphasizes that, above all, “the objective is to de-escalate tensions and channel conflicts into institutional agreements.” Sheinbaum has made it clear that Mexico’s doors will hardly be fully reopened to the DEA, but has also maintained that her administration’s stance toward Trump is not one of closure, but rather one of openness and a willingness to collaborate, as long as it is on an equal footing.

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