Mexico Rocks
I remember walking across a floodplain in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, with a hydrologist visiting from Washington, DC, and another NGO friend of mine after another 100-year flood struck the east side of town. It was the third 100-year flood in five years, and we were trying to determine why the eastern part of Jalalabad suffered such devastation every time it rained heavily. As we strolled along, a retinue of boys attached themselves to us to see what we were up to. Suddenly, we heard a dull thud, followed by a large column of black smoke spiraling into the air behind the tree line to our left.
The hydrologist, who I think was a USAID guy, asked what that was, and I replied that the Taliban had just blown up a fuel tanker with a limpet mine. My buddy Chris added, “They get the magnets from old desktop computers that the Air Force DERMOs in Bagram.” Our DC friend asked if we were in danger, and Chris replied that as long as we weren’t driving a fuel tanker, we would be fine. Another thud and another spiral of thick black smoke followed, and Chris smirked and said to our DC-based companion, “Jalalabad Rocks.”
Since last Sunday, Mexico has been rocking on a much grander scale. Drug cartels in Mexico have more firepower, money, and freedom of movement than the Taliban had in 2010. Thanks to the FJB administration and their hand-picked, DEI-obsessed, food-blister general officers, the Taliban now has more firepower than any three Mexican cartels combined. But in 2010, they didn’t have the billions in high-end military gear we left behind. And not until the very end of the Afghan war could they simultaneously shut down a half-dozen provinces with roadblocks and gunmen.
Last Sunday, after the Mexican military decapitated the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) by killing Nemesio “El Mencho” Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, his sicarios shut down several Mexican states with roadblocks of burning vehicles and road spikes, and they also torched multiple buildings, including the Puerto Vallarta Costco. El Mencho was tracked down by the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel after one of his girlfriends led them to a secluded resort compound in Tapalpa. The Mexican Army raid force that took him out was trained in Mexico by U.S. Navy SEALs. President Sheinbaum said she would not allow armed American military inside Mexico, but something has clearly changed.
The CJNG’s reaction made the bombing of a few tankers on the Jalalabad bypass road look like child’s play. Footage of burning vehicles, stores, and sicarios strutting about as if they owned the country generated hysterical reactions in the legacy media. Speculation that Americans vacationing in Puerto Vallarta would be kidnapped or murdered in retaliation was rampant, though there are no credible reports of American or any other tourists being targeted.
But in a demonstration of never letting a crisis go to waste, the American Private Military Corporation, Sabre Defense, is offering multiple extraction options for American executives and anyone else with a large expense account. Their menu of extraction options includes a two-man executive protection detail for three days for a mere $10,800. An extraction from Kabul by road over the Khyber Pass cost $150,000 in 2010. I’m guessing the PMC business isn’t nearly as remunerative as it was during its heyday in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The CJNG temper tantrum lasted less than 24 hours, and now the roadblocks have been cleared, extra troops have been deployed (mostly to Jalisco), and calm has been restored. President Sheinbaum has promised that there will be no risk to foreign fans attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup matches in Mexico this June or to Americans spending their Spring Break in Mexican coastal resorts. She may or may not be correct in her wishful thinking, but the real question is, what the hell is going on in Mexico?
Since President Trump began his second term, Mexico has turned over 92 high-ranking Narcos to the United States. That list includes former Olympian Ryan Wedding from Canada, who has been hiding from the DEA in Mexico for the past ten years. Wedding was wanted for smuggling massive amounts of cocaine, money laundering, and witness intimidation. President Sheinbaum claimed Wedding turned himself in and provided an AI-generated photograph of him standing outside the U.S. Embassy as proof. The photograph proved she was lying, but that is to be expected given her tenuous situation.
Mexico is the land of wolves, and Sheinbaum is not a wolf. She is a far-left progressive feminist who spent four years studying sustainable energy at UC Berkeley. She was elected in a landslide as the Morna Party’s candidate. They selected her to do their bidding, which is why she is cooperating with the hated Yankies by turning over cartel leaders. But ordering the death of the head of the most powerful cartel, and it’s been reported that the Mexicans had no intention of taking El Mencho alive, is not the act of a Berkeley feminist.
Killing El Mencho was payback from Mexico’s head of Security and Civilian Protection, Omar Garcia Harfuch. Six years ago, CJNG gunmen attacked Harfuch’s convoy in Mexico City, killing two of his guards, one innocent bystander, and hitting him three times. According to astute observers of Mexico, such as Joshua Trevino of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Harfuch enjoys a sterling reputation with the current American State Department. He also has a strong working relationship with President Sheinbaum, dating back to her days as the mayor of Mexico City. Although reading the power dynamics of the Mexican Federal government is harder than the old Soviet Kremlin, it is a solid bet that Omar Garcia Harfuch hung the death sentence on El Mencho.
He had good reasons to go medieval on CJNG; they were hyperviolent, which is saying something in Mexico. They had a unique management theory for seizing new territory. First, they eliminated the other cartels, then they killed the local police chief in his office in broad daylight. Then they killed anyone who might get in their way, and maybe 5 people on the side just to be sure. They wanted everyone to be so terrified of them that they would never even consider standing against them. It’s very different from the plata o plomo (silver or lead) hearts-and-minds strategy that El Chapo followed.
The CJNG should have known better than to spend 24 hours on the streets trying to intimidate the Mexican government. They have enough former soldiers and spies to understand the new U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel’s ability to intercept their communications, identify their soldiers, and build a comprehensive database of their hideouts. If the U.S. military were running the show, it would launch a sustained series of raids targeting the CJNG and kill them by the score. There is no reason to think the Mexicans lack the same capabilities. But they clearly don’t have the will to use the Carthaginian Solution to rid themselves of a menace to their society.
The reasons for Mexico’s sudden cooperation with the Trump administration are straightforward. Mexico’s economic growth is anemic, inflation is high, and the peso is weak. What they cannot afford is for President Trump to raise the tax on remittances above the 1% rate that took effect on January 1st. More importantly, Mexico and the United States are set to begin formal USMCA trade negotiations this summer.
Last year, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all goods that do not qualify for preferential origin treatment under USMCA. Now, Mexico has to deal with Marco Rubio if it wants to retain its preferential origin treatment. Unlike virtually every Secretary of State in my lifetime, Marco Rubio is not a clown, not an ideologue, uninterested in the opinion of globalist elites, and solidly behind President Trump’s America First agenda. Mexico is going to have to do better than sending us old Narcos and washed-up Canadian Olympic stars to receive anything remotely resembling a good deal from Secretary Rubio.
For now, we have been able to get Mexico to cooperate with us in dismantling some of the designated narco terrorist networks. But there is no reason to think that they are willingly cooperating or serious about wresting control of their territory from the Narcos. When Mexico starts arresting the Narco Politicians who enabled the cartels to dominate so much of the countryside, we will know they are serious about ending the Narco reign of terror against the Mexican people.
Excellent insights.
Trump is a Builder not a Butcher and should avoid war. The course outlined of economic leverage is correct.
Thanks !