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Just hours after the United States overthrew Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, accused of “narcoterrorism,” US President Donald Trump hinted that he may expand military operations against Mexican drug lords.
“We have to do something” about the United States’ southern neighbor, President Trump said on “Fox & Friends” over the weekend, noting that the Mexican government has repeatedly rejected his proposals to “eliminate the cartels.”
On Thursday, President Trump reiterated his position and said he would soon target cartels on the ground. “We’ve taken out 97% of the drugs that come in through our waterways, and now we’re going to start landing on land when it comes to cartels,” Trump told Fox News.
Mexico may seem a logical target for President Trump’s so-called war on drugs. It is a major producer of fentanyl destined for the United States and a major distribution route for cocaine from Colombia. That makes it a far more important player in the global drug trade than Venezuela.
But experts say President Trump’s description of Mexico’s human trafficking world – one dominated by a small number of easily broken cartels – contradicts how criminal organizations actually operate.
For years, books, movies and the Netflix series have portrayed Mexican cartels as top-down organizations led by colorful drug lords like Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman. Guzmán became famous for his Houdini-like prison escape. In the 1980s and 1990s, six such cartels dominated Mexico’s human trafficking industry, several of them based near the U.S. border.
Today, the crime landscape has completely changed. Most of the old cartels have split up. There are currently about 400 groups of varying sizes operating across the country, said Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia Intelligence, a Mexican consulting group that tracks them.
“They are virtually everywhere,” he said.
The largest ones are becoming more sophisticated and complex. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the most powerful, is made up of about 90 organizations, up from 45 a few years ago, Guerrero said.
“This fragmentation means we will need more complex and sophisticated strategies to weaken and dismember them,” he said.
Capturing a few top drug lords doesn’t necessarily disrupt a trade worth billions of dollars a year. Mexican authorities tried this approach in an aggressive 10-year manhunt for drug “lords” that began around 2007. Mexican military and police, supported by U.S. intelligence and equipment, arrested or killed dozens of key figures in the cartel. But someone has come to replace them. Large quantities of drugs continued to flow across the U.S. border.
Benjamin T. Smith, author of “The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade,” said cartels have evolved into complex economic networks with large consumer bases, more akin to multinational corporations than traditional terrorist groups.
“If you fired the CEO of Coca-Cola tomorrow, you wouldn’t stop selling Coca-Cola,” he said. “As long as there is a great demand for drugs, there will never be a shortage of supply.”
In fact, many analysts argue that this “kingpin” strategy has backfired, causing cartels to split into smaller groups that fight each other and the government, changing the way they operate.
They increasingly sought to control territory and impose “taxes” on nearly everyone within their territory. This includes both legitimate businesses, such as avocado growers, and smugglers transporting drugs and immigrants into the United States. Those who do not pay risk being killed.
What makes the country’s security especially difficult is that “no one is really in control, neither the cartels nor the government,” said Mexican organized crime researcher Falco Ernst. In some areas, such as Mexico City, the government has the upper hand. Some areas are controlled by armed groups.
“There’s a mosaic of different forms of power,” he said. “So the problem becomes so complex that you can’t simply implement one simple solution for the whole country. Power, conflict violence, drugs and crime don’t follow one model. They follow 1,000 models.”
Cartels are becoming more and more entrenched as they penetrate the country’s political structure. That was evident in the 2024 national elections, when criminal organizations openly sought to install their own mayors in various regions. Thirty candidates were killed during the campaign, and hundreds more dropped out due to intimidation.
Criminal groups are embedded in many local police forces and have an increasing role in the economy. In some areas, they effectively run their own intelligence services, paying or blackmailing local street vendors, construction workers, taxi drivers, and others into reporting security force movements.
Smith said removing cartel leaders does not eliminate these types of structures.
Criminal organizations are increasing their support by providing jobs. A 2023 study by Mexican and European researchers published in the journal Science estimated that cartels employ 160,000 to 185,000 people nationwide.
When asked for comment on whether the Trump administration is oversimplifying the Mexican cartel issue, White House press secretary Anna Kelly told CNN she referenced the recently released National Security Strategy and the Monroe Doctrine, a policy enacted in the 1800s that warned outsiders, especially Europeans, to stay out of the Western Hemisphere.
“The administration is reasserting and enforcing the Monroe Doctrine to restore U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere, curb immigration, and thwart drug trafficking,” Kelly wrote. “The President has many options at his disposal to continue protecting our country from illegal drugs that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.”
In contrast to President Maduro, Mexico’s president has maintained relatively cordial relations with the Trump administration. But Sheinbaum drew the line at allowing U.S. troops into Mexico.
“Our position on sovereignty must be firm and clear,” Sheinbaum told reporters on Monday, emphasizing that he wants to work with Trump but does not want to take orders from him.
There is a reason for Mr. Sheinbaum’s position. U.S. military action could provoke a backlash not only from a nation with deep memories of U.S. invasions in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but also from Sheinbaum’s leftist Morena party and Mexico’s staunchly nationalist forces. It also has the potential to spark large-scale, potentially destabilizing violence.
The Pacific state of Sinaloa has issued a warning. Last summer, Mexican traffickers, apparently working with U.S. authorities, captured Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and forced him onto a plane bound for New Mexico. The move sparked a war within the cartel, leaving thousands dead or missing.
Sheinbaum argues that there is no need for the United States to step on the scene because it is already taking action. Since President Trump took office nearly a year ago, threatening tough sanctions to force Mexico to curb fentanyl trafficking, Mr. Sheinbaum has sent thousands of troops to the U.S. border to interdict drugs and immigration. She transferred dozens of prime drug trafficking suspects to the United States.
Unilateral military intervention by the United States could seriously damage relations with what has become Washington’s largest trading partner.
President Trump reiterated his assertion Monday that “we have to do something” about drugs “coming into Mexico.” Sheinbaum is “a little afraid” to accept the military’s offer, he said. “Cartels are running Mexico.”
Mr. Sheinbaum, known for his calm and steely demeanor, tried to downplay his comments. He said at a news conference Tuesday that he has “very good communication” with the Trump administration. Asked if she thought it was unlikely that President Trump would pursue U.S. military action in Mexico, she simply answered, “Yes.”
Nevertheless, President Trump has brought new uncertainty to the relationship.
Brenda Estefan, a professor of geopolitics at IPADE Business School in Mexico City, wrote in a column for Reforma newspaper that in attacking Venezuela, the United States “acted as a force establishing order in a neighboring region.” The US move “establishes a new power structure that no country in Latin America can ignore.”
