Common Ground Is Needed to Rebuild US-Mexico Security Cooperation

This brief is part of “Election 2024: Policy Playbook,” a series by the Baker Institute and Rice University that offers nonpartisan, expert analysis and recommendations to equip policy leaders governing the United States and Texas in 2025.

The Big Picture

• The United States and Mexico do not possess an effective framework to address or effectively prioritize mutual security interests related to drug and human trafficking and other criminal activities that affect their binational relationship.
• Mexico has taken a more nationalistic course in its domestic politics, viewing any cooperation with the U.S. as a potential encroachment on its sovereignty.
• In turn, the United States has reduced almost all security cooperation with Mexico on the issue of immigration, neglecting other key concerns such as organized crime and fentanyl.
• These conditions have resulted in low levels of cooperation and, consequently, a diminished chance of successful resolution to mutual security concerns.
• Both Washington and Mexico City need to transcend their mutual suspicions to find common ground for cooperation. Addressing all major security issues comprehensively — rather than individually — would provide the give-and-take needed to identify satisfactory solutions to these challenges.

Summarizing the Issue

The United States and Mexico do not possess an effective framework to address mutual security interests related to drug and human trafficking, human smuggling, cross border gunrunning, money laundering, and other criminal activities that affect the binational relationship. The two governments do not agree on the priority of the issues, either. While the U.S. views drug trafficking and human smuggling as its main issues, Mexico views gun smuggling and human trafficking as considerably more important.

The criminal processing of a cartel leader from Mexico is one recent example of the countries’ lack of cooperation and its implications. On July 25, 2024, one of the most powerful drug lords in Mexico, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, was allegedly abducted from the northwestern state of Sinaloa. The capo landed in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and was quickly taken into custody and then to the U.S. Federal Court Building in El Paso, Texas. He has been charged with drug trafficking and other crimes and is currently awaiting trial in New York. The Mexican government was unaware of the operation and has since demanded an explanation from the U.S., alleging violations of the country’s sovereignty.

This incident and the Mexican government’s strong protestations that followed are an illustration of the current state of U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security. There is very low mutual trust when it comes to managing joint intelligence and law enforcement operations, causing the U.S. to act alone against drug trafficking, as in the case of Zambada. There are also low levels of joint activity against organized crime on the ground in Mexico, with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other U.S. operatives being rejected or having their scope of activities in Mexican territory very restricted. In general, there is little cooperation between the two countries on fighting drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other criminal activities. 

This has not always been the case. In 2007, the Mérida Initiative framed joint work by the two countries against criminal organizations. However, the new nationalistic government in Mexico views that period as one of unprecedented American presence in Mexico and, consequently, largely unacceptable. Thus, the initiative was replaced by the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities initiated in 2022. This framework, however, is looking increasingly like a distraction by the Mexican government to tamp down all security cooperation with the United States. The level of frustration experienced in Washington over its concerns, specifically fentanyl trafficking — which kills over 100,000 Americans a year — has led it to act unilaterally to fight organized criminals within Mexican territory and without Mexican cooperation, as illustrated by Zambada’s arrest. This, however, is likely to weaken cooperation even more.

Expert Analysis

Obstacles to Cooperation

Several issues impede the creation of a new, more effective framework of cooperation on organized crime. 

1. Mexico’s renewed nationalism, historically associated with anti-Americanism, and the ratification of the MORENA Party in power over the next six years is a barrier for bilateral cooperation. Even more worrisome is the strong possibility that the López Obrador administration, which has been in power from 2018–24, and his political party, MORENA, have strong support from organized crime. 
2. Mexico has employed an effective strategy to delink key binational issues and negotiate each of them separately with Washington. One example of this is the desire of Washington to address undocumented, disorderly, and mass migration at the border, which has allowed Mexico to provide lower levels of cooperation in exchange for getting this particularly contentious political issue under control. 
3. The seeming inability of the Biden administration to craft a sustained strategy by Washington toward Mexico — one that would link all issues into a single framework for cooperation within the region — remains an issue. 

A Broader Solution to a Joint Problem

Washington and Mexico City will have to transcend their mutual suspicions to find common ground for cooperation. Mexico City will have to accommodate mutual interests, despite its renewed nationalism, and acknowledge that the country has a serious problem with organized crime — which is now penetrating all governmental structures and building a social base. It will need the help of the U.S. and possibly also Canada to deal with organized crime, in what Eduardo Guerrero has called a “North American Security Treaty.” Canada’s participation could help assuage Mexico’s suspicions of Washington’s alleged interference in Mexican domestic affairs. At the same time, Washington will have to improve its diplomatic approach and convince the Mexican government that all issues must be placed on the table at the same time and dealt with comprehensively; these are to include:

• Trade. 
• Security. 
• Investment. 
• Democracy. 
• Infrastructure. 
• Immigration and labor markets. 

Issue linkage would make it possible to provide incentives in one area in exchange for concessions in another area. Dealing with one issue at a time would lead to zero-sum games and the perpetuation of the current low levels of cooperation.

Policy Actions

• The Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities must be scrapped to give way to a more comprehensive framework on North American cooperation. Clear objectives, measurable results, effective actions, responsible actors, and specific committed resources must be specified within this framework.
• Joint action must be favored over unilateral operations, even if or when intelligence could potentially be compromised. In the long run, this will pay off considerably more than one-sided covert action.
• Washington must avoid unilateral action in Mexican territory to assuage the country’s fears of American interventionism.
• Mexico must acknowledge that it is in its best interests to find a way to cooperate with the United States and possibly Canada on security in order to leverage this cooperation to reduce its exposure to the violence, crime, and corruption generated by criminal organizations acting in detriment to not only Americans but also all Mexican citizens.

The Bottom Line

The United States and Mexico need to transcend their mutual suspicions to find common ground for cooperation to resolve mutual security concerns effectively. Addressing binational issues related to security, crime, and public health simultaneously would provide the give-and-take needed to identify solutions to these challenges that are satisfactory to both countries.

This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.