Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is facing a new test of her ability to satisfy both political supporters at home and President Donald Trump.
The U.S. indictment of the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, as well as nine other current and former Sinaloa public officials, is the latest trial in what has become a presidency-defining challenge.
“President Sheinbaum is between a rock and a hard place,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States.
Rocha Moya is an important character in Mexico’s ruling political party. He was a close ally of former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is Sheinbaum’s political mentor. He and other accused officials have painted the U.S. indictment as a direct attack on the political movement that brought Sheinbaum to power.
To the north, she faces a counterpart known for strong-arming neighbors — and a high-stakes review of a trade agreement that binds her country to the United States.
In a video statement to announce he was stepping down, Rocha Moya doubled down on his innocence.
“I have a clear conscience,” Rocha Moya said. “The accusations against me are false and malicious.”
But calls about Rocha Moya’s alleged ties to organized crime have been coming from inside the house for years, said Mexican security consultant David Saucedo. Mexican journalists have long documented links between officials in Sinaloa and the drug cartel that’s based there, as well as uncovered similar ties in other parts of the country.
“This is a relationship that goes back decades,” Saucedo said.
Tackling those ties will be difficult but necessary, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, who studies violent non-state actors at the Brookings Institution.
“Going merely against the narcos and not tackling the crime-politics nexus is inadequate and insufficient,” said Felbab-Brown. “Trying to dismantle and unravel the deep connections of criminal groups to politicians and government officials in Mexico is fundamental.”
The U.S. grand jury indictment in a New York district court alleges former and current officials, including Rocha Moya, have received a combined millions of dollars in bribes. In exchange, they allegedly shielded members of the Sinaloa cartel from investigation and prosecution. The indictment describes a yearslong conspiracy in which Rocha Moya allegedly met with cartel leaders himself.
The accused face maximum sentences of life in prison in the United States for drug trafficking and weapons charges.
Sheinbaum says her government won’t protect anyone who has committed a crime, but that the United States hasn’t provided enough evidence for Mexico to fulfill a request to detain the accused for extradition.
Her own government is now investigating the claims from the U.S. court. If “irrefutable” evidence is found, she said the accused should be tried in Mexico, not the United States.
“We coordinate and collaborate with the United States,” Sheinbaum told reporters. “But we are never going to be subordinate — it’s a matter of dignity.”
The indictment comes as Mexico and the United States head into their first formal round of talks ahead of a mandated summer review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal. That trade deal is critical to the health of Mexico’s export-heavy economy.
The Trump administration has previously linked trade issues to migration and drug policy goals. Near the beginning of his second term, the Trump administration put a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico explicitly linked to the flow of drugs, including fentanyl, into U.S. territory. That tariff was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
But experts say drug trafficking, and Mexico’s perceived willingness to crack down on cartels, are issues that are likely to come up as the three countries negotiate in the coming months.
“Given that Trump has weaponized interdependence between Mexico and the United States, and is linking everything to trade and tariffs and the USMCA review, the U.S. has a whole lot of instruments it can use to pile political and diplomatic pressure on Mexico,” Sarukhán said.
Experts say the United States’ slate of leverage tactics could go beyond trade.
If Mexico decides to protect the accused public officials from prosecution, it could embolden Trump allies who have advocated for U.S. military action in Mexico, Sarukhán said.
The indictment comes in the months after U.S. forces captured Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face prosecution. Offshore, the death toll from U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and East Pacific nears 200.
Those things show an appetite inside the Trump administration for military firepower in the Americas that should have Mexico considering the possibility of U.S. drone strikes or other military action inside their territory, Sarukhán said.
“If any of that happens, it’s going to put the U.S.-Mexico relationship in a tailspin,” Sarukhán said.
A lack of cooperation with the United States could also beget more indictments, experts say. In an interview with NewsNation this week, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested more indictments were coming.
Mexico has handed over dozens of suspected cartel members to face prosecution in the United States over the past year.
“So one consequence of having a lot of the leaders of some of these cartels brought here over the past year, in our cooperation with the Mexican government, is some of them will likely want to cooperate,” Blanche said. “And that cooperation could lead to additional charges."
Mexico security consultant David Saucedo says there are several Mexican states — including some on the border — that could see U.S. indictments of high-level officials.
The United States has been investigating narcopolitics in Mexico for years, but there haven’t been indictments quite like this one before, Saucedo said.
“Donald Trump changed the framework,” Saucedo said.
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