Sheinbaum’s monologue diplomacy is meeting Washington’s deaf ear

President Claudia Sheinbaum at her morning press conference this week in Mexico City. Image credit: Presidency of Mexico.

by David Agren, writer-at-large.

Shortly after rumours started that Ovidio Guzmán – son of imprisoned Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – might plead guilty on drug trafficking charges and accept a deal with US prosecutors to turn state’s witness, influencers for Mexico’s ruling party settled on a narrative for denouncing the US government’s actions: It was negotiating with terrorists. 

President Claudia Sheinbaum repeated that narrative, too. From the podium of her mañanera press conference, she objected to the deal with the younger Guzmán, while noting the lack of cross-border coordination in the plea bargaining process and reiterating her opposition to the Trump administration’s designation of six drug cartels as foreign terror organizations. "They have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists,” she said. “They decided to designate certain criminal organizations as terrorists. So let them report whether there's an agreement or not."

Sheinbaum’s comments didn’t go unnoticed. Jeffrey Lichtman, Ovidio’s lawyer, plainly stated why the Mexican government wouldn’t be a party to any plea agreement: a lack of trust dating back to 2020 and the decision to send former defence secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos back to Mexico after he was indicted on drug charges in the United States.

The war of words heated up as Sheinbaum, who doesn’t let any slight go unanswered, called Lichtman’s comments “disrespectful” and promised to sue him for defamation. That promise is an idle threat: former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised the same, but never followed through – likely because the discovery process of any lawsuit would disclose too much unflattering information.

“The people of Mexico (and myself) know that she acts more as the public relations arm of a drug trafficking organization than as the honest leader that the Mexican people deserve,” Lichtman later posted on X. 

Sheinbaum and AMLO vehemently deny having any undue ties with drug cartels. But the accusation keeps surfacing – especially as US President Donald Trump threatens tariffs of 30% on Mexican exports unless Mexico does more to his liking on the issue of stamping out fentanyl.

Trump alleged an “intolerable alliance” between the Mexican government and narcos while announcing tariffs in February – but later granted a reprieve. He revived the accusation of inadequate action in a letter announcing the 30% tariffs for Aug. 1, saying, “Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground.” 

AMLO, of course, pursued a stated security policy of “hugs, not bullets,” which Sheinbaum has quietly abandoned. He never once had a cross word for narcos, repeatedly toured the narco heartland of Sinaloa state, and infamously greeted El Chapo’s mother.

The former president also intervened to order the release of Ovidio Guzmán during the Culiacánazo in 2019. He later accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of espionage after it infiltrated Los Chapitos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction formed by El Chapo’s sons.

“The prevailing perception in many corners in Washington, D.C., is that you’ve had a Mexican government these past six years, which, if not in cahoots with a particular criminal organization, has been turning a blind eye to their activities and seeking to reinstitute a pax narca,” said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s former ambassador to the US, told The Globe and Mail.

Changing perceptions in Washington is no easy task – especially with a Trump administration that previously handed over Cienfuegos and a Department of Justice with a long institutional memory, according to a source familiar with Republican circles.

The US government sanctioned three Mexican financial institutions over alleged money laundering related to fentanyl trafficking. Speculation has swirled over the politicians with drug ties losing their US visas – with the governor of Baja California saying she lost hers, while denying any wrongdoing.

Then there’s the arrest warrant – issued in February – against Hernán Bermudez Requeña, former public security secretary in AMLO’s home state of Tabasco, who’s on the lam after being accused of acting in cahoots with a criminal group known as La Barrera.

Bermudez was appointed to position by the then-governor Adán Augusto López – a figure close to AMLO, who the former president appointed as Interior Minister in 2021. López would later run as one of AMLO’s “corcholatas” – candidates – for the presidential nomination of the ruling Morena Party

Accusations of López handing over his state security service to the alleged leader of a criminal group with links to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel first surfaced in military intelligence documents that were part of the Gaucamaya Leaks, the trove of emails hacked in 2022 from the National Defence Secretariat.

Barrera initially denied the accusations, telling Proceso that the group known as La Barrera was “inexistent.” Tabasco subsequently exploded with homicides quadrupling in 2024 when compared to the previous year.

His whereabouts are unknown. López has kept a low profile, too, since the news of the arrest warrant against his former security secretary broke. His closeness to AMLO was unquestioned, however.

Morena reacted predictably, rallying to protect one of their own. The party’s senators – who including López – called the accusations “disinformation” and “defamation.”

Others pointed to – you guessed it – convicted former security secretary Genaro García Luna as the example of narco politics in Mexico, which they insist is a thing of the past and point to his imprisonment in the US as proof.

Sheinbum did the same in her morning press conference on Thursday, saying the White House pointed to him back in its February documents justifying tariffs on Mexico. She later began chorreando – talking at length without making a clear point – on how the US had its own problems of drugs and crime to deal with. 

“Courage has to do with standing by your principles, with not allowing any criticism to affect the project and who we are,” she said. “That’s why I say: we are not the same.”

Such self-righteous prose and poses have worked wonders for AMLO and Sheinbaum in the mañanera. The narratives pushed in the mañanera and by ruling party influences have proved sticky, too. But the narrative in Washington is one of a Mexican government too willing to tolerate untoward activity and actors in its ranks. That won’t change with mere words and narratives coming from a press conference for domestic consumption.