Mexico tries to tame the 'monster' cartel, ask Donald Trump
Every day, thousands of trucks head to the Thunder in Texas, heading towards Nuevo Laredo, the busiest freight point on the Mexican-U.S. border.
Top business leaders visited a $100 million international rail freight bridge described by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday, a symbol of North American integration. But three days ago, Nuevo Laredo had news for different reasons.
The masked gunman sprayed bullets from heavy automatic weapons as the Mexican army fought against the Mexican army on the bridge leading to the city. Municipal authorities told residents that they were evading gunfights and arrested a man in security forces, saying it was the second command of a drug trafficking gang in Cártel del Noreste.
The two faces of Nuevo Laredo – a bustling border trade hub and a bullet-like drug battlefield – took US President Donald Trump away with Mexico’s problems, and Sheinbaum’s struggle in trying to appease him.
There are about 3mn trucks per year for Nuevo Laredo, but the city has become so dangerous that executives at nearby Monterrey Business Hub avoid using it at all costs. “I never go there,” said a wealthy financier. “I have a home in San Antonio, Texas (two and a half hours north of Laredo by car), but I always fly, not drive.”
As part of a hasty agreement to avoid the tariff threat from Trump to all imports from Mexico to the United States (a move that has caused disaster to Mexico's export-oriented economy) – Sheinbaum agrees to place 10,000 additional National Guard Sent to the border, to the border to the illegal exit of the stem of the highly effective opioid fentanyl. This is Trump's top priority.
But with about 20,000 trucks and 208,000 cars crossing the border every day, few people think that when searching for drugs for a year at the 2,000-mile border, thousands of additional troops will have a big impact on almost no pickup.
“The Mexican government was very suitable for crime at first. . . “It was a snowball and when they wanted to fight it, they realized it was much bigger than they thought it would be,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexican security expert. . ” “They don't have, nor have the ability to defeat this enemy. ”
Sheinbaum is particularly embarrassed by the White House executive order last Saturday, accusing the Mexican government of building an “unbearable alliance” with the drug cartel.
Although many Mexicans privately believe that the government may have had such a connection for decades, the U.S. government has no such claim in public, and Sheinbaum expressed an indignant rejection of what she called “White House slander.”
The left-wing Mexican leader now faces a huge challenge to convince Trump that she is making a quick mark.
Her government inherited a grim security situation from her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose “embrace rather than bullet” policy was to make the cartel resting lead to Increased violence. The U.S. Northern Command estimates that drug cartels control 30 to 35 percent of Mexican territory.
Cartels have been flooding for decades, with the largest sneering into transnational organized criminal groups, competing and smuggling drugs, ransomware businesses and transportation immigrants.
Last year, seven of the top ten cities in the world were passed through the murder rate in Mexico. “Narcos” sparked a car bomb, posted videos of torture online and hung the bodies of its enemies on the bridge. Mexicans often view safety as their primary concern in polls.
Trump has focused on the role of Mexican traffickers in supplying fentanyl, which has become the leading cause of death among young Americans.
“Synthetic drugs are too easy to ship,” said Duncan Wood, chairman of the Pacific International Policy Committee. “You can stop 90% of fentanyl from coming out of the lab, and there is still a major public health issue.”
Since taking office in October last year, Sheinbaum has taken a more aggressive approach. She added seizures of drugs, including the largest fentanyl transport ever and conducted more military operations against the cartels. But her strategy has not calmed down the most violent hotspots yet, and budget cuts have hurt operations. Security dispersion between the military and local police.
It is speculated that in Mexico, Trump may have extracted other, undisclosed promises from Sheinbaum, which is part of their deal, which also covers the move to cut illegal immigration across the U.S. border, which is a one for Mexico A simple task compared to solving a cartel.
People following the discussion said that the U.S.-Mexican deal could include permission to operate more freely for U.S. military and anti-drug agents. The Mexican government has not commented yet.
“This is an opportunity to reset it,” said Ray Donovan, former director of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. “Hope is Mexico. . Hopefully, fully cooperate. It makes sense for both countries.”
According to Aircraft Discoverers, a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft flew early this week along the coast of Mexico's California Peninsula in international airspace. A Monterrey business executive who asked not to be named said it was “a clear message from Americans to the Sinaloa cartel, the country's largest drug trafficking organization.”
Trump has further exacerbated the heat and has signed an executive order to start designating drug cartels as foreign terrorists, a move that could free up economic sanctions and open up the way for military operations. In a memorandum on Thursday, the Justice Department ordered the group to be “completely eliminated”.
Trump and other Republicans have suggested a series of armed interventions in Mexico, from drone strikes on drug laboratories to special forces operations.
When asked if he could “pursuing” a drug cartel in Mexico this week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Fox News: “All options are on the table.”
A December poll showed that most Mexicans will support our level of involvement in drug trafficking, including sending drones and funds, equipment and training to Mexican security forces, but not sending U.S. agents.
Americans won’t have carte blanche, said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, a researcher at the Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California. “The Mexican government has shown that it is willing to have these conversations and wants to address these issues, but there are red lines.”
The most sensitive issue is the link between the alleged organized crime and Mexican authorities, with local media asking if Trump saw specific intelligence to support his claims.
This is because he kidnapped Ismar “El Mayo” Sambada's United States after he was betrayed by a former business partner. Zambada has been the leading political trader for Sinaloa Cartel for decades.
“He has become the great patriarch of organized crime in Mexico and is a man with a lot of information that he will certainly give up,” Guerrero said.
Drawing by Cleve Jones