In the days after the killing of one of the country’s most powerful cartel leaders, Mexico is bracing for the possibility of more violence.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the kingpin known as “El Mencho,” was the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel. He’s been wanted for years by both U.S. and Mexican authorities.
In the hours after his killing during a Mexican military raid, cartel members burned cars and buildings — blocking roadways and disrupting travel in parts of Mexico, including the Jalisco resort city of Puerto Vallarta.
Now, Mexico is watching for the possibility of more violence, as lower-level leaders of one of the county’s most brutal cartels could start to jockey for power.
“There will potentially be new violence breaking out as to who will succeed El Mencho, who will be the new leader of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación,” said Brookings Institution expert Vanda Felbab-Brown.
The 2024 transfer of the Sinaloa cartel kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada to the United States led to deadly infighting in that cartel that persists today.
Experts say the violence experienced around Mexico so far has been retaliatory, the result of cartel members protesting the death of their leader. That violence caused the U.S. State Department to issue a shelter in place recommendation for U.S. citizens in certain Mexican states in the hours after the killing of El Mencho.
But it’s still unclear whether Sunday’s killing will result in a decline of drug trafficking from Mexico into the United States.
“I think what remains to be seen though is whether or not taking out El Mencho is part of a more comprehensive and thought-through strategy,” said Will Freeman with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mexico has been under pressure from the Trump administration to do more to fight cartels. Mexico’s military said it used intelligence from the United States to carry out Sunday’s raid in Jalisco, but that Mexican forces carried out the operation. Twenty-five Mexican troops were killed in the raid, Mexico’s security secretary said Monday.
The killing comes in the months ahead of a possible renegotiation of the trilateral trade agreement that binds the United States, Mexico and Canada. President Donald Trump has, in the past, tied tariffs to Mexico’s ability to stop the flow of drugs through the U.S.-Mexico border, and his administration has encouraged Mexico to take a more hardline approach to cartels.
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The U.S. and Mexico will meet next week to begin talks on the USMCA, the trade agreement that governs much of the economic relationship between the two countries as well as Canada. The USMCA is one of the major reasons that trade with Mexico has remained relatively steady in spite of the broader uncertainty created by President Trump's ill fated tariff policy.
