Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has endorsed the position taken by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in his letter to Trump. The president not only highlighted the letter’s defense of national sovereignty but also recalled efforts to combat organized crime during the previous six-year term and the arrests of high-ranking drug traffickers carried out under López Obrador’s mandate. “Historically, there has been interference under the pretext of drug trafficking,” she reiterated, pointing out the intentions to use Mexico’s internal politics to stir up the November elections in the United States and to weaken Morena ahead of the 2027 midterm elections in national territory.
The president displayed an informational poster with all the organized crime leaders who were captured between 2018 and 2024. Among the most prominent names are Ovidio Guzmán Loera, one of the leaders of Los Chapitos; also Rosalinda González, wife of Nemesio El Mencho Oseguera, and Abraham Oseguera Cervantes, Don Rodo, brother of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The Government assures that there were more than 84,000 arrests, of which at least 39 people had a relevant profile in the Mexican criminal hierarchy. “If there had been collusion, then why were they arrested? This is the narrative they have tried to push,” the president said, referring to the objective of right-wing movements that, according to her, try to undermine Morena’s reputation.
Both in the letter López Obrador signed from his retirement in La Chingada, Chiapas, and in Sheinbaum’s speech last Sunday from the Monument to the Revolution, ranks are closed around the defense of national sovereignty at a time of tensions due to US interference in Mexico. Washington has requested the arrest for extradition purposes of 10 officials from Sinaloa, including Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, for their alleged links to drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the Chihuahua government faces an investigation into the presence of CIA agents during a ground security operation. “A very strong campaign is unleashed that continues on social media and practically all media outlets, saying ‘narco-party, narco-government.’ This comes from the most right-wing sectors in the United States, linked to a part of the government because in their November elections they want to use Mexico as part of their rhetoric and to ally with the far-right in Mexico for the 2027 election,” Sheinbaum concluded.
The president reiterated that there is no conclusive evidence against Rocha and the others accused by the US Department of Justice, just as López Obrador defended Salvador Cienfuegos, head of the Army during Enrique Peña Nieto’s government, in his letter. “We have the right to doubt, because historically there has been a desire for interference under the pretext of drug trafficking,” she emphasized. Regarding the words of the new Secretary of Homeland Security, former Senator Markwayne Mullin, who highlighted the collaboration of the Mexican Government and indicated that Sheinbaum’s Cabinet team is being “very cooperative, much more cooperative than the previous Administration,” the president assured that López Obrador also worked in conjunction with Washington on security matters. But, above all, she highlighted the final words of Mullin’s intervention in the House Homeland Security Committee. “What I like most about the statement is the final part. It says ‘they still believe in their national sovereignty and we have to respect that.’ It’s the truth, it’s exactly what we told him here at the meeting,” she added.
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