Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has abandoned her predecessor’s soft-touch approach towards cartels

Mexico 's President Claudia Sheinbaum has quietly been abandoning the security framework of her predecessor, the populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador .

The light touch from the Mexican government, coupled with opportunities created by the Biden administration’s lack of enforcement at the U.S. border, allowed the cartels to flourish over the past several years .

Mexico has proven so cooperative with President Donald Trump in his efforts to close down the border and crack down on drug and human trafficking.

Sheinbaum ’s security programs still have a long way to go to become truly effective at taking on cartel violence. Faced with a mounting deficit last year , Sheinbaum cut the security services budget significantly for 2025 , a decision she may now regret. But she has long since begun tacking away from López Obrador’s lenient treatment of organized crime, and Trump has provided excellent cover for her to do so under the guise of political necessity—something that allows her to avoid a politically costly confrontation with her predecessor’s supporters in the party..