Mexico - February 2026

The start of the year has seen Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum face increasing pressure from US President Donald Trump for more cooperation in the fight against drug cartels. Trump has suggested he will send the US military in to combat cartels if the situation does not improve, threats that have taken on renewed significance in the wake of the US military incursion in Venezuela on 3 January. While Sheinbaum remains adamant that the US would not infringe on Mexican sovereignty in such a way, she is clearly feeling the pressure and is working hard to appease Trump. Efforts so far may not prove enough to satiate the US president, however, amid speculation that Sheinbaum may have to roll back somewhat on her defence of Mexican sovereignty and allow the US military into the country to coordinate with Mexican forces in some capacity, despite her protestations to the contrary.

No sooner had the US gone into Venezuela and deposed of its then-president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026), than Trump appeared to turn his gaze elsewhere. On 4 January Trump declared that Cuba was “ready to fall” and that Colombia was “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine”. Despite the less antagonistic nature of relations between Sheinbaum’s government and the US than those between Trump and Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel or Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, he also levelled criticism at Mexico, saying the country “has to get their act together” in terms of tackling drug cartels. While he said he would “love” for Mexico to solve the problem itself and that the country was “capable” of doing so, he warned that “we’re going to have to do something” if the situation did not improve. Days later, Trump indicated the military was preparing for land attacks against cartels, which he claimed were “running Mexico”.

This has all proven a tough test for Sheinbaum’s ‘cool-headed’ approach to dealing with Trump. She has stood firm in her rejection of the US attack on Venezuela and repeatedly rejected any notion of US interventionism in Mexico. She held a brief phone call with Trump on 12 January in which she highlighted results of Mexican efforts to crack down on drug cartels, such as increases in drug seizures and arrests. High-level meetings and phone calls have also taken place between Mexico’s Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as a meeting between Public Security Minister Omar García Harfuch and the administrator of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, and the third gathering of the US-Mexico security implementation group (SIG).

While on the surface, Sheinbaum has presented herself as calm and intransigent on the boundaries of what security cooperation entails, the reality behind the scenes may be somewhat more complex. Incidents in recent weeks have led many to believe that her government is making more concessions to the US than it lets on, potentially in contradiction of its fierce non-interventionist rhetoric.

Military activities

Suspicions were raised on 16 January when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned US airlines to exercise caution when flying over Mexico, as well as other parts of Central and South America, due to “military activities” and potential satellite interference. This set alarm bells ringing given that a similar alert had been issued to airlines flying over Venezuela shortly before the US incursion. Sheinbaum’s government dismissed the alert as a precautionary measure, with Sheinbaum saying she had received written confirmation that there would be no US military flights over Mexico.

The FAA’s alert was compounded by the fact that a US military aircraft was spotted at Toluca airport in Estado de México (Edomex) the following day. Again, Sheinbaum downplayed the plane’s presence, saying it had been authorised by the defence ministry and was transporting officials from the public security ministry (SSPC) to the US for training. She said this arrangement was part of an agreement made in October and was “not exceptional”. She denied that the senate needed to have given permission for the plane to land in Mexico, as some opposition legislators had suggested, given that it did not constitute the entry of foreign troops into Mexico for operational work.

This all comes amid reports that the US is upping pressure on Mexico to allow military forces to conduct joint operations to combat drug cartels in the country. US officials speaking on condition of anonymity to The New York Times in January stated that the US wants special operations troops or agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to accompany Mexican security forces on raids of suspected fentanyl laboratories. According to the cited officials, US forces would act in a support capacity, providing intelligence and advice to Mexican troops, with Mexican forces remaining in charge of the operations.

Concessions

While Sheinbaum continues to deny that any such joint operations would be permitted, a recent incident fuelled further speculation as to the true boundaries for US security forces. On 23 January the US embassy in Mexico announced the “surrender” of Ryan Wedding, an alleged Canadian drug trafficker and one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives. It said he had handed himself in as “a direct result of pressure applied by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement working in close coordination and cooperation”. Wedding’s surrender meant that Patel, who was in Mexico on 23 January to meet with security officials, returned to the US with not one but two of the top ten most wanted fugitives, after Mexican security forces arrested suspected murderer Alejandro Rosales Castillo days earlier.

However, Patel’s account of the arrest seemed to differ from that given by the embassy. Speaking to reporters after landing in Los Angeles, Patel stated that Wedding – famed for being a former Olympic snowboarder – had been “apprehended”, saying that, “to go down to Mexico, to find a guy that had been on the lam for multiple years… takes an inter-agency wide effort led out by President Trump, our DOJ [Department of Justice] and our partners in Mexico”. Asked in a press conference whether Wedding had in fact been captured by US special forces rather than handing himself in, Sheinbaum denied that there were any joint operations with US forces in Mexico. “US agents, from the FBI or any other agency, know their limitations very clearly,” she said.

Whatever the true nature of Wedding’s arrest, it undoubtedly served as a boon for bilateral security relations. It came after Mexico had made a third mass transfer of prisoners, all alleged cartel members, to the US on 20 January. Among the 37 prisoners were those linked to criminal organisations that are priority targets for the US, such as the Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), and Cártel del Noreste (CDN), all of which Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organisations. The transfer brought the total number of prisoners handed to the US in this way to 92, following previous transfers in February and August 2025, which also came at times when Trump was ratcheting up the pressure for Mexico to crack down on drug trafficking.

While the prospect of unilateral US military action in Mexico appears unlikely for the time being, Sheinbaum will likely come under increasing pressure to make more concessions to the US in terms of security cooperation. Whether these be demands to have more Mexican security personnel trained in the US, or to allow the US greater access to operations on the ground in Mexico, Sheinbaum will likely find the balance between placating Trump and defending Mexican sovereignty ever harder to maintain.

Cuba

Another point of tension with the US in recent weeks has been Mexico’s shipments of oil to Cuba. Mexico has reportedly become Cuba’s top oil supplier after the US cut off oil shipments from Venezuela following its capture of Maduro. While Mexico’s state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has halted some contractual oil shipments to Cuba, Sheinbaum has said Mexico will continue to send oil as “humanitarian aid”. As of 29 January, Trump had announced that he would place tariffs on countries sending oil to Cuba but had not yet specified which countries would be targeted.

Prisoner transfer 

Notable figures included in the prisoner transfer were Pedro Inzunza Noriega, who was arrested in December 2025 after the US named him in its first terrorism indictment against Mexican drug traffickers in May; Ricardo González Sauceda, who the US sanctioned in May and is allegedly a regional leader of the CDN in northern Mexico; Armando Gómez Núñez, alias ‘Delta 1’, who is allegedly the head of an armed wing of the CJNG; and Daniel Alfredo Blanco Joo, alias ‘El Cubano’, who is reportedly a logistics operator for the Cártel de Sinaloa.