Trump Threats and Mexico’s Crackdown Hit Mexican Cartel

One cartel leader says he’s trying to figure out how to protect his family in case the American military strikes inside Mexico. Another says he’s already gone into hiding, rarely leaving his home. Two young men who produce fentanyl for the cartel say they have shut down all their drug labs.

A barrage of arrests, drug seizures and lab busts by the Mexican authorities in recent months has struck the behemoth Sinaloa Cartel, according to Mexican officials and interviews with six cartel operatives, forcing at least some of its leaders to scale back on fentanyl production in Sinaloa state, their stronghold.

The cartels have sown terror across Mexico and caused untold damage in the United States. But here in Culiacán, the state capital, the dynamic seems to be shifting, at least for now. Cartel operatives say they’ve had to move labs to other areas of the country or temporarily shut down production.

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The government crackdown on organized crime intensified after the Trump administration threatened retribution unless Mexico halted the supply of fentanyl into the United States, vowing high tariffs if the flow of migrants and drugs continued.

President Trump began floating the possibility of tariffs soon after his election in November, and soon after taking office announced 25 percent levies on Mexican goods if the country didn’t act on border security and drug trafficking. The president gave Mexico a month to deliver results, threatening to enact the tariffs on March 4 if he wasn’t satisfied.

Facing economic chaos, the Mexican government went on the offensive. President Claudia Sheinbaum dispatched 10,000 national guard troops to the border and hundreds more soldiers to Sinaloa state, a major hub of fentanyl trafficking where a cartel war has caused turmoil for months.

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The country’s law enforcement seized nearly as much fentanyl in the last five months as it did in the previous year. Ms. Sheinbaum’s administration says it has made nearly 900 arrests in Sinaloa alone since October.

Then, last week, the Mexican government said it had begun sending to the United States more than two dozen cartel operatives wanted by the American authorities. It was a clear signal to the Trump administration that Mexico was eager to fight the cartels, though Mr. Trump said on the same day that he was still not satisfied with the government’s efforts and that tariffs would go into effect on Tuesday.

“Criminal groups have not felt this level of pressure in such a long time,” said Jaime López, a security analyst based in Mexico City.

In interviews, cartel operatives agreed. Some said they were selling off property and firing unessential personnel to make up for lost income from the dent in the fentanyl trade. Others said they were investing money in advanced equipment to detect American government drones, which the United States flew into Mexico during the Biden and Obama administrations as well.

Criminal organizations in Mexico have a long history of surviving efforts to dismantle them, or simply splintering off into new groups. But several operatives said that for the first time in years, they genuinely feared arrest or death at the hands of the authorities.

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Inside the Trump administration, there is still some division over whether the United States should take unilateral military action in Mexico against the cartels, or whether it should work more closely with the Mexican government in combating the drug trade.

Mexico’s cartels are known for amassing military-grade weapons, including I.E.D.s and land mines, yet the operatives acknowledged in interviews that they could scarcely compete with the American military’s arsenal. Even so, one high-level operative said the cartel would be prepared to respond if raids or strikes were carried out.

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Last week, Mexican forces arrested two big players within the Sinaloa Cartel who were close associates of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, the most powerful son of the drug lord known as El Chapo. After news of the captures spread, the Mexican military deployed a surge of soldiers throughout the city, setting up checkpoints and blocking off entire blocks.

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But few dispute that corruption is rampant in Mexico. The last major crackdown on organized crime was led by a security chief who was later convicted in U.S. federal court of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.

Cartel members said the only reason the government hadn’t really fought them until recently was because they’d bought off enough officials. One cartel cell leader said he doubted that this new effort would seriously damage the cartel because the group could ensure its survival by bribing key officials.

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