U.S.-Mexican security cooperation took an unexpected turn when, on Oct. 15, 2020, U.S. police arrested former Mexican Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos, a retired Mexican Army four-star general, at the Los Angeles Airport. He had been under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and was charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, and working on behalf of a somewhat obscure cartel, H-2, which traces its origins to the better known Beltrán Leyva Organization. After an outraged Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador threatened to kick the DEA out of Mexico, the Trump administration agreed to release Cienfuegos into Mexican custody, where it was understood he would be prosecuted. Instead, Mexican prosecutors declared the DEA allegations against Cienfuegos to be fabricated and dropped all charges. The Mexican government then posted online a 751-page file of intelligence the United States had shared with Mexico to assist with the prosecution. The file included intercepted texts between cartel figures and referenced numerous instances of Mexican state officials and security forces collaborating with cartels, including helping them to consolidate territory against rival groups. Leaking this information likely tipped off some figures not yet aware they were under investigation.
The end result of this violation of trust—and, in the view of the U.S. Justice Department, of the two countries’ Treaty on Cooperation for Mutual Legal Assistance—was, well, not much. Though the U.S. side threatened to suspend intelligence sharing, it has continued to work closely with the Mexican government on security issues. Since 2007, Washington has spent more than $3 billion through the Mérida Initiative to assist Mexico in its efforts to combat violence and drug trafficking, a program that Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard has said “doesn’t work.” Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress continues to allocate more than $100 million in annual counternarcotics security assistance, training, and Mexican purchases of U.S. military equipment to prosecute the so-called war on drugs with no signs of abating. Over this time, homicides in Mexico—many of them cartel-related—have quadrupled.
