The killing of cartel boss Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera by Mexican special forces a week ago is the biggest blow to organized crime in Mexico in years.
The danger is that Washington takes the wrong lesson: That Mexico can handle the cartels on its own, if only it musters the political will.
It can’t. Not without serious American help.
President Claudia Sheinbaum had already broken from her predecessor’s passive approach, which had allowed the cartels to become far too powerful.
She ramped up fentanyl seizures and handed cartel members to the United States.
But going after the kingpin of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Mexico’s most dangerous criminal organization, was a different order of magnitude.
President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to order unilateral strikes on Mexican cartels were likely a deciding factor; the Mexican government had recently come to believe a US incursion was likely.
Whatever mix of conviction and calculation drove Sheinbaum’s decision, the costs are falling squarely on Mexico.
Within hours, CJNG demonstrated its reach, burning trucks and buildings across 20 states and killing 25 National Guard members.
The longer-term costs — a succession war inside the cartel, rival groups grabbing territory, months of escalating violence — are still ahead.
Trump got the result he wanted.
The question is whether he will help manage the consequences.
The stakes are immense for Mexico, but also for the United States.
The two countries are co-hosts of the FIFA World Cup, with matches scheduled for June in Guadalajara — CJNG’s home turf.
And security conditions will shape the upcoming renegotiation of the USMCA trade agreement, which underpins $334 billion in annual US exports to Mexico.
The operation alone doesn’t weaken CJNG: The group’s fighters, its revenue streams and its weapons are all intact.
Mexico will likely use the momentum to go after CJNG’s remaining command structure and networks.
But it almost certainly lacks the resources to see that through alone.
Mexico’s cartels collectively earn over $40 billion a year, enough to buy military-grade weaponry, armored vehicles, drones and the kind of fortified infrastructure usually associated with battlefields, not criminal enterprises.
El Mencho employed hackers to infiltrate military computer systems to monitor intelligence, and in the raid, troops seized rocket launchers capable of shooting down aircraft.
Against this, Mexico spends a mere 0.6% of GDP on defense.
Local police often earn around $200 a month; cartels offer five times that.
Many CJNG members are former security personnel.
And the key drivers of cartel power lie outside Mexico’s control — in the United States.
American demand for illegal drugs is the engine of the whole enterprise.
The 80,000 US overdose deaths in 2024 are a tragedy, but they’re also a market signal: As long as demand remains enormous, the cartels will have customers.
The second driver is the endless flow of American weapons south across the border — the “iron river” that keeps the cartels armed.
These facts are central to how Mexicans understand the security crisis, but are largely absent from US policy debates.
Long term, Mexico needs Washington’s support to build law-enforcement capabilities, strengthen its justice system and reduce cartel recruitment.
Short term, two things matter most: intelligence and guns.
US intelligence was critical to the El Mencho operation.
A task force under US Northern Command supported the mission, and the CIA reportedly provided his location.
The next phase — helping Mexico further degrade CJNG as it splinters — demands sustained, real-time cooperation.
The two governments have agreed in principle to expand intelligence-sharing and link analytical platforms; now is the time to make that operational.
Most cartel weapons are illegally trafficked from the United States; a 2025 study estimated the southbound flow at 135,000 per year.
After years of inaction, the US and Mexico announced “Mission Firewall” in September to address the problem through expanded border inspections, tracing technology and prosecutions.
Follow-through on this effort is now urgent.
US Customs and Border Protection has interdiction capabilities far superior to Mexican customs, and past short-term southbound inspection surges have yielded significant quantities of weapons, ammunition and cash.
But the 1,200 weapons CBP seized heading south in 2023 represent less than 1% of the estimated flow.
A systematic approach is long overdue.
Mexico has killed cartel leaders before, but it has never turned a decapitation strike into lasting degradation of a criminal organization.
Past efforts produced fragmentation and violence, until a new structure emerged.
Gaining a durable advantage over the cartels requires something Mexico doesn’t have on its own: A partner willing to shut down the arms pipeline that keeps the cartels lethal, and to share the intelligence capability that will help dismantle what remains.
Trump can do both — if he chooses to.
Daniel Batlle, an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, has served at the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.
