Mexican President Sheinbaum Unlikely To Fully Fight Cartels Because Members Of Her Party Are Accused Of Having Ties, Journalist Claims

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is unlikely to fully take on drug cartels in the country because many members of her party, Morena, are facing allegations of having ties with organized crime themselves.

Journalist Mary Beth Sheridan said in a guest essay published in The New York Times that Sheinbaum doesn't have the "iron control" over the party that her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had.

She went on to say that the party is divided in factions over loyalty to Sheinbaum or Lopez Obrador, and moving on politicians targeted by such accusations could lead to an internal clash that ends up undermining her.

The Trump administration has reportedly demanded the Sheinbaum administration to pursue politicians accused of cartel ties. The article in question, published by the Wall Street Journal, claimed that high-ranking Mexican officials have held meetings to discuss such demands following the capture of Venezuela's authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.

Sheinbaum has rejected the report, saying that "such an issue has never been raised." "There is no case where they told us 'we have proof of this, we have a warrant,'" she added.

However, a prominent Mexican journalist contradicted the claim, saying there are actually some concrete names that have been mentioned.

In a column published in El Universal in January, Carlos Loret de Mola said that Sinaloa Gov. Ruben Rocha Moya has apparently been mentioned as a top tier politician wanted by the U.S. He added that in the "Top 3" there is also another governor and an army general.

Elsewhere in the report, Sheridan explained that criminal groups in Mexico are increasingly resembling territorial powerbrokers, exerting control over local economies through extortion, oil theft and migrant smuggling, often with the protection or complicity of local officials.

She added that cartels now intimidate or dominate local authorities outright. Officials who resist risk assassination, like the case of Mayor Carlos Manzo in 2024. Ahead of that year's elections, dozens of candidates were murdered and many more withdrew under criminal pressure, underscoring how deeply organized crime has penetrated local politics.

Sheinbaum has adopted a more forceful security posture than her predecessor, deploying troops to the U.S. border, extraditing alleged cartel leaders and touting mass arrests and a declining homicide rate. However, her administration has largely avoided confronting the political protection networks that enable organized crime, partly out of fear that dismantling them could spark further violence.

Originally published on Latin Times