With schools still closed, flights cancelled and the charred carcasses of buses smouldering on streets across the country, Mexico was still reeling from the cartel backlash prompted by the killing of cartel kingpin Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho.”
Security minister Omar García Harfuch was moved almost to tears on Monday as he offered his condolences to the families of soldiers felled in the operation to kill the country’s most wanted drug lord. Mexican military personnel, he said, “fulfilled their mission”.
But Donald Trump had a very different message to offer. As Mexican officials confirmed that 25 members of the national guard were killed in the operation, Trump posted on social media that: “Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs!”
The killing of El Mencho has highlighted the intense pressure exerted by Trump on the Mexican government, the key role of the United States in supporting the country’s security operations, and the continued struggle Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, will face in her efforts to appease her US counterpart.
Oseguera, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC), has been indicted several times in the US since 2017.
But since the start of his second administration, Trump has ramped up the pressure, offering a reward of up to $15m for information that might lead to Oseguera’s capture in December of 2024. Then last year, the White House designated the JNGC as a foreign terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, Trump has spent months insisting that the Mexican government must do more to take on drug trafficking groups, including offering to send US troops across the border, something which Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed.
Adding pressure to Mexico is the upcoming World Cup: Guadalajara, the JNGC’s major stronghold, is also scheduled to host several matches.
“That was also a factor that triggered the Mexican government’s strategy to arrest the top leader of the Jalisco cartel and to show the World Cup organizers that the Mexican government has the capacity to confront these organizations and to control and guarantee security in a city like Guadalajara,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a former Mexican security official and expert on the country’s cartels.
The successful capture and killing of Oseguera may offer the Mexican government some short-term reprieve from Trump’s insistence that the country do more to go after the cartels.
“It’s going to take a lot of pressure off the Mexican government,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to Washington. “It’s going to be harder for Trump to continue having his cake and eating it too, which is providing glowing references to Sheinbaum while at the same time saying she’s afraid to take on organized crime.”
US officials were quick to praise Mexico for its efforts in taking down the famed drug boss.
On Monday, Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman, posted on X: “This is the beginning of the war against the most violent and deranged cartel in Mexico … We finally have a solid partner in the Mexican Government to work with.”
Both Mexican and US officials have emphasized the importance of US intelligence in taking down the drug lord.
“That intelligence was fundamental,” said Guerrero, adding that the operation would have required close monitoring of the cartel boss. “That tracking and the timing of the operation were almost certainly the work of US intelligence … it played a crucial role.”
Reuters reported on Monday that a newly created US-military-led taskforce specializing in intelligence collection on drug cartels was involved in the raid that led to Oseguera’s killing.
“It’s evident that the joint taskforce that was set up … several months ago is starting to deliver the goods in terms of intelligence sharing,” said Sarukhan.
Yet Sarukhan emphasized that the killing of El Mencho cannot be divorced from Mexico’s trade relationship with the US.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the trade agenda is co-contaminated with law enforcement and counternarcotics collaboration,” he said.
Tony Payan, a US-Mexico studies expert at Rice University said: “The US offered a carrot and a stick. The stick was obviously the threat that the US would fight the cartels without Mexican authorization if Mexico didn’t agree to cooperate with the United States.”
As for the carrot, Mexico and the United States are in the midst of renegotiating the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement: last week, reports emerged that Trump was considering exiting the agreement altogether.
“There was a strong signal that if Mexico cooperated with the United States, there would be rewards,” said Payan. “And the reward is a potential re-approval of the USMCA.”
The killing of El Mencho may boost Mexico’s chances of a good deal in trade negotiations. Still, Payan emphasized that the pressure won’t ease for very long.
Trump’s “thirst has been quenched, but I think the pressure will continue”, he said. “This wasn’t the end by any means. It was just the beginning.”
