The US president, Donald Trump, asserted in early February that Mexican drug-trafficking organisations have an “intolerable alliance” with the government of Mexico. His remarks have cast a pall over bilateral relations already strained by recent talk of tariffs and military interventions.
Although the two nations have sometimes clashed in the past, Mexico is today a close US ally. It is America’s top trading partner, with two-way commerce totalling US$807 billion (£640 billion) in 2023. And joint US-Mexican anti-narcotics collaborations stretch back nearly a century.
Trump’s accusation was, therefore, as unexpected as it was explosive. It has brought figures from across the Mexican political spectrum together in condemnation of what Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, called “baseless slander”.
