Marcel Julien

🇺🇸💥🇲🇽The U.S.-Mexico relationship is entering a dangerous period of tension not seen since the Mexican-American War started in 1846. 🇺🇸👉Trump continues to publicly belittle Mexico while also making threats of launching some kind of military strike on Mexican soil. He doesn't seem to understand the potential fallout from ruining the world's most incredible example of cross-border political, economic, & cultural cooperation. Mexico is the U.S.'s most important trade partner and a key ally on so many policy issues ranging from water to migration. 📰 In a recent @HoustonChron opinion column, former members of Congress @CShays and @RichardSwett6 make an important point: before Washington talks about military action against Mexican cartels, it should look much more closely at what is already working — and at the role the U.S. itself plays in the drug trade. 3⃣💡 Three points stand out: 🇲🇽🪖1. Mexico is already taking the fight to the cartels. The Mexican government has dramatically increased pressure on cartel leadership, infrastructure, laboratories and finances. Mexican authorities report major drug seizures, the dismantling of more than 1,150 clandestine laboratories, the seizure of more than 1 million fentanyl pills, a roughly 25% reduction in daily homicides and the extradition of high-profile cartel figures to the U.S. The DOJ has also publicly praised the unprecedented level of security cooperation with Mexico. None of this means the cartels have been defeated. They haven't. But the idea that Mexico is simply refusing to confront them — or that the U.S. needs to intervene militarily because Mexico isn't doing enough — doesn't match the evidence. (💡It is true, however, that President Claudia Sheinbaum could do more to confront politicians from her own party who have been accused of colluding with cartels.) 🇺🇸💰🔫2. The U.S. is part of the cartel business model. This is the point Americans often overlook. The drug trade isn't simply a problem Mexico exports to the United States. American demand creates the market. 💰U.S.-based financial networks help move and launder cartel money. 🔫Large quantities of firearms used by Mexican criminal organizations originate in the United States. 👀Under Trump's watch the U.S. has cut down seizures of U.S. guns & ammo being smuggled into Mexico. 📉"U.S. penalties for money laundering and sanctions violations fell 61% in 2025, amid a broader reduction in financial crime enforcement. Between February 2025 and January 2026, outbound handgun and long-gun border seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection fell by nearly 50%, while outbound ammunition seizures dropped by nearly 70%," Shays and Swett explain. 🌎Money & guns flow south from U.S. into Mexico. International supply chains provide the precursor chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs. In other words, the cartel business model depends on much more than what happens on the Mexican side of the border. Military action against Mexico wouldn't solve any of these problems. 🇺🇸🇲🇽3. The U.S.-Mexico relationship is much more interconnected than the rhetoric in Washington suggests. Mexico isn't simply America's southern border. It is America's largest trading partner, a major manufacturing partner and a critical part of North American supply chains. The security relationship is equally interconnected. Mexico needs U.S. intelligence, technology and cooperation to dismantle sophisticated criminal organizations. The U.S. needs Mexico to control its side of the border, disrupt cartel networks and cooperate on extraditions, intelligence and investigations. That means the real strategic question isn't whether the U.S. can pressure Mexico harder. It's whether Washington can find ways to make the two countries more effective working together. Right now, discussions about security cooperation are taking place parallel to talks about the future of USMCA. 🇲🇽👀The big takeaway: The U.S.-Mexico relationship is not a zero-sum relationship in which every Mexican success is somehow an American concession. Mexico's success against the cartels is an American interest. More effective Mexican institutions are an American interest. (Even if Trump generally doesn't seem to understand the value of strong institutions and capable, well-staffed, independent government agencies & isn't likely to prod Mexico to take steps he wouldn't push at home.) Reducing the flow of fentanyl, cartel money & firearms requires cooperation across the border — not pretending that the problem exists entirely on 1 side of it. Yes, the U.S. has enormous leverage over Mexico. ❌ But, a U.S. military intervention in Mexico would risk provoking President Sheinbaum & poisoning the relationship Washington needs in order to address the problems Trump says he cares about most. 🇲🇽📗On episode 13 of my @ModernMexico Podcast I spoke to historian Peter Guardino about his book, THE DEAD MARCH: A HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR, which describes how in 1847 when invading U.S. soldiers marched into the Zocalo in Mexico City, residents climbed onto the roofs of buildings in the centro to pelt the U.S. troops with bricks & rocks. It's easy to imagine how unilateral military action against Mexico today could lead to a new "Straight of Hormuz" quagmire for Trump if he blows up cooperation with Mexico on so many key issues.