MEXICO CITY — For months, Mexican business officials have gathered in a sleek conference room of the American Chamber of Commerce here to learn about a U.S. threat to their firms that isn’t a tariff.
The topic? President Donald Trump’s labeling of several Mexican and other cartels and gangs as terrorist groups. That action is part of a broader Trump pressure campaign on Mexico to eliminate the threat of drug cartels to the U.S., which could soon include U.S. military strikes.
Trump’s move means a company in Mexico that engages in a financial transaction with a cartel could face new U.S. sanctions or criminal charges of providing material support for terrorism. Given the vast reach of the cartels, which have expanded beyond drugs to become more like multinational conglomerates, odds are high that firms here occasionally brush against such networks, even unwittingly. So business leaders are crowding Chamber sessions, grabbing coffee and pastries, and poring over detailed protocols about how to protect themselves from institutions such as the U.S. Treasury Department.
“They’re worried,” Pedro Casas Alatriste, a top Chamber official, told me. “Let’s say they have one of their workers get kidnapped, and they have to negotiate in a way that touches organized crime — then they’re susceptible.”
Trump has succeeded at scaring Mexico’s business class over the cartel issue and rattling Mexico’s broader political class with menacing promises of military action. But will he achieve his grander ambition of quashing the cartels? Almost certainly not. In fact, Trump could make an already bad situation worse.
Trump’s approach to the cartels is not a comprehensive strategy. It is an incoherent set of tactics at best. At worst, the approach undermines itself.
The most glaring example of this is how, even as Trump turns to hard power tactics to weaken the cartels, he is simultaneously cutting funds for U.S. drug treatment programs. So while cartels may face some blows from Washington, the demand for their product could grow, giving them financial reasons to keep up supply.
On top of that, tariffs, deportations and growing tensions with Mexico’s government, especially over U.S. military action, are creating openings for the cartels to expand their reach.
Trump deserves credit for forcing more attention on the cartels, their transnational reach and Americans’ sad addiction to fentanyl and other drugs, as well as how U.S. adversaries such as China are involved. The danger is real.
And many of the people I spoke to — among them current and former U.S. and Mexican policy and security officials — said Trump’s decision to designate cartels as terrorist organizations, while not crucial to the fight, provides U.S. law enforcement and the military more legal tools to go after cartels and others affiliated with them.
But virtually everyone also said this and other Trump pressure tactics won’t end or substantially reduce the cartel threat. A much more comprehensive, coherent approach is needed.
The Trump method “is aggressive, but not innovative,” said Mirlis Reyes, a Washington-based analyst whose expertise includes illicit economies and transnational organized crime. “We know the outcome: Drug availability persists, markets adapt and overdose rates remain high.”
I sent repeated, detailed questions to the White House and other U.S. agencies asking about Trump’s approach. All I received in response were broad statements praising Trump’s terrorist designations and migration crackdown. “Designating these malign groups helps law enforcement bring justice to victims and charge individuals who help terrorists,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told me.
On Friday, news broke that Trump had ordered the U.S. military to prepare for potential strikes against the cartels.
The reaction among Mexico watchers was a collective facepalm.
“It’s ineffective, undiplomatic and politically unwise,” said Carlos Perez Ricart, an academic close to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s circles. A person familiar with the conversations told me that business leaders were pressing the U.S. ambassador here, Ronald Johnson, for clarification on Trump’s plan but couldn’t get clear answers. Sheinbaum, meanwhile, declared Mexico’s strong opposition to such U.S. action.
A unilateral U.S. strike could undermine Sheinbaum politically, making it less likely her government will further cooperate with the U.S. on a cartel crackdown. Sheinbaum already has deployed security forces to fight the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, handed over dozens of alleged cartel figures to the U.S. and sent more troops to the U.S. border. She’s simultaneously trying to negotiate with Trump on tariffs, migration and other issues.
Trump isn’t the first president to overemphasize one element of the drug fight, such as Jimmy Carter’s focus on treatment for addicts, or to pay too little attention to parts of it, such as George W. Bush’s passive acceptance of the end of the federal assault weapons ban. Presidents who oversaw more multifaceted plans, such as the Merida Initiative, still faced political pressures to limit their scope. Merida lasted more than a decade, including Trump’s first term.
What makes Trump unusual are steps he is taking that could actually strengthen the cartels he’s trying to destroy.
Consider tariffs. Trump has cited the cartel trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs as one of his reasons for imposing tariffs on Mexico, a major U.S. trading partner. In all likelihood, however, tariffs will damage the official Mexican economy. That means a potential growth in unemployment here and a strengthening of the illicit economy, all of which could lead to more recruits and financial openings for cartels, who know the black market well.
Deportations are a related issue. The Trump administration alleges that many of the migrants it kicks out are cartel and gang members, and that it’s easier to deport them than prosecute them.
What’s likely, though, is that the U.S. will create a pool of new recruits for cartels overseas or prompt the rise of new such networks. There is history here: At least one of the gangs now labeled as terrorists, MS-13, morphed into a transnational threat because people America deported established overseas offshoots. The State Department acknowledged this in its February announcement of the terror designations.
Trump has accused Mexican politicians of being corrupt and “petrified” of the cartels. It’s hard to find anyone serious here who denies these accusations completely. But, setting aside Trump’s own alleged corruption, his administration also is actively demolishing tools used to fight such malfeasance globally. That includes dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and weakening enforcement of anti-corruption laws aimed at companies abroad.
While cartels exercise significant control over many parts of Mexico, there are few open displays of their power in the heavily policed megapolis of Mexico City. Still, there are billboards warning that fentanyl kills, and the occasional restaurant with a narco-gangster theme. Some neighborhoods are plastered with photos of Mexicans who have disappeared, possibly due to decades-long cartel violence.
Many here who follow the U.S.-Mexico security relationship dismiss Trump’s moves against the cartels as performative and aimed at U.S. voters.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s going to work. It matters if it seems, for his audience, that it’s going to work,” a former Mexican security official opined over a cappuccino. He then thought for a moment and added: “Perhaps he thinks it’s going to work. That’s even more problematic.”
I granted him and several others I spoke to anonymity because the topic was sensitive and physically risky.
Unlike traditional terrorist groups, the cartels are not ideological. Their goal is to make money, and they long ago diversified their portfolios beyond drugs into everything from human trafficking to fuel theft. They also have expanded deep into legal markets.
Many Mexican firms, such as those attending the Chamber sessions, are now ramping up spending on lawyers, security consultants and people who specialize in vetting supply chains and clients — all so they can at least say they tried to steer clear of the cartels.
The Trump crackdown recognizes cartels’ financial motive. He has sanctioned several actors, from Mexican banks to a Mexican rapper on allegations of laundering cartel money. Yet on this front, too, Trump sends mixed signals. He has weakened some rules around cryptocurrency, a method of finance cartels are believed to be using more.
Then, of course, there’s the gun factor. The U.S. government’s own studies have found that a huge portion of the firearms used in cartel-related violence in Mexico originate from the United States. Trump and his aides are nonetheless trying to weaken gun laws. (Mexico has suggested U.S. gun manufacturers should face charges of aiding terrorists.)
None of this is to say that the cartels aren’t feeling pressure.
The U.S. and Mexican clampdowns — whether increased border patrols, drone surveillance or Mexican troops battling it out in Sinaloa — have led to many arrests. They may have exacerbated cartel infighting, much of which is linked to some remarkable U.S. detentions of cartel leaders that predate Trump. Reports abound of the cartels being short on money.
There are worries inside the Mexican government about whether cartel figures in U.S. custody will point fingers at Mexican politicians, Mexican analysts and former officials said.
Some also expressed frustration that the U.S. crackdown appears so focused on Mexican entities as opposed to Americans who help the cartels. That provides an incentive for cartels to strengthen collaborations with U.S.-based criminal networks.
Former U.S. law enforcement officials told me that’s likely to change; there’s already at least one court case involving a terror-designated cartel that has ensnared some Americans. (The terrorism labels, in theory, can mean that a drug user who buys product traced to the cartels could face terror-related charges, but it’s unlikely prosecutors will go after such low-level offenders.)
The cartels are good at adapting — they already are doing so, from what analysts told me.
They are changing the way they ship their products to reduce detection. They can expand their presence in markets well beyond the United States. They can switch to harder to detect drugs lesser-known than fentanyl, deaths from which appear to be going down in the U.S. They can expand their work in other criminal enterprises, such as fuel theft.
The former Mexican security official, who retains contacts inside the government here, said many cartel figures don’t fear capture and extradition to the U.S. It might be extra attractive if they can get into the U.S. federal witness protection program, even if it means ratting out former colleagues. It’s all viewed as an acceptable price to pay for an otherwise financially lucrative life.
As the former official explained to me, “It’s a very toxic dynamic.”
