Why U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation Is Still Falling Short for Washington

In recent weeks, high-level exchanges between the United States and Mexico have underscored a shift in how Washington defines progress on security cooperation, with U.S. officials increasingly emphasizing the need for “tangible results,” including the prosecution of politicians with cartel ties. These signals arrive amid heightened debate over the possibility and consequences of unilateral U.S. action in Mexico, as well as growing concern about how security dynamics may intersect with the upcoming United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) review. Below, CSIS Americas Program experts react to the evolving security, economic, and political implications of this new phase in U.S.-Mexico relations.

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New Thresholds for U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation

Diego Marroquín Bitar, Fellow, Americas Program

Record-level fentanyl seizures, 97 alleged criminals and drug traffickers sent to the United States to face justice (not formally extradited), and a sharp increase in intelligence sharing between U.S. and Mexican agencies together mark a 180-degree shift in U.S.-Mexico security cooperation since the end of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration. Yet for Washington, these steps are viewed as necessary, not decisive.

The upshot from the most recent call between Mexico’s foreign minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is that the United States is looking for “tangible results” from Mexico. Despite unprecedented cooperation and visible enforcement gains, the Trump administration does not yet believe Mexico is fully pulling its weight on the security agenda. As the bilateral relationship is no longer compartmentalized, progress on trade negotiations, including a USMCA extension, now hinges directly on results in security and drug interdiction.

Under this new trade and security paradigm, intelligence sharing alone is not sufficient to protect the region’s core security interests. The next items on the U.S. bucket list, as Eduardo Guerrero-Gutérrez points out (see below), are high-level prosecutions in Mexico and the effective disruption of cartel financial and extortion networks inside the country. Without progress on these issues, it will be hard to dissuade the White House from considering unilateral U.S. kinetic action against the cartels on Mexican soil. That possibility remains the bilateral poison pill. Such a move would be deeply destabilizing for North America and its future as an economic powerhouse.

All of this now converges on the forthcoming USMCA negotiations. Security cooperation is no longer on a separate track; it has become a gatekeeper for economic certainty. For Mexico, the task is no longer to demonstrate goodwill, but to deliver durable, verifiable results that can withstand political pressure in Washington. Failing to make progress risks allowing security frustrations to bleed directly into trade talks, raising uncertainty for investors and firms across the region. The message from Washington is unmistakable: Without solid and durable security results, trade certainty will be ephemeral.
 

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When Security Becomes the Organizing Principle of U.S.-Mexico Policy

Martha Bárcena Coqui, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Americas Program

The second Trump administration is different from the first iteration, both in approach and focus. The traditional U.S. approach toward Mexico was to privilege stability and to consider Mexico a strategic partner. Now, Mexico is increasingly seen as a threat to U.S. national security. The whole agenda has been “securitized.” The focus has changed from migration and trade under the first Trump administration to security, security, and security, including migration as a security issue, while ignoring labor complementarity. The problem and challenge with this approach is that there are no clear benchmarks or clear expectations for security cooperation. The Trump administration does not operate under Biden-era agreements, such as the U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, meaning that currently, the United States does not have a juridical framework for bilateral security cooperation. This opens the possibility of unilateral measures that can and will profoundly disrupt the bilateral relationship.
 

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Military Uncertainty Threatens Economic Stability

Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, Head of the North American Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

In the most recent high-level exchange between Mexico and the United States, the public learned the U.S. Department of State is emphasizing the need for “tangible results.” This choice of words once again brought to the fore whether this includes U.S. military action in Mexico, and if so, what would it entail. Mexico has repeatedly declined offers for this type of intervention, underscoring respect for each country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moreover, unilateral actions would not only be detrimental to diplomatic relations but also significantly damage citizens. The abduction of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada from Sinaloa in 2024 and subsequent arrest in the United States produced an escalation of violence that has forcibly displaced populations and impacted daily life for citizens and businesses alike.

If Sinaloa is a bellwether of what unilateral military action in Mexico could cause, then economic costs should be top of mind. This is especially relevant considering the upcoming USMCA review and the stated policy objectives for national security of the Trump administration. A recent report by the World Trade Center San Diego found that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade relationship has accelerated under the USMCA—an agreement negotiated during the first Trump term in office. The report found that USMCA reached $1.6 trillion in total value of goods traded in 2024, a 31 percent increase since 2019, the last full year of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and nearly $4.4 billion in goods trade occurs daily among USMCA partners. The uncertainty created by a military action could potentially affect 17 million jobs generated through this economic integration and at least 33 U.S. states that have Mexico among their top three import partners. The United States has a legitimate concern in wanting to stop preventable deaths from drug overdoses, but communities on both sides of the border will only be safe if Mexico and the United States find mutually agreed avenues for working together. Unilateral actions will not stop arms trafficking into Mexico any more than they can stop overdose deaths in the United States.
 

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U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation at a Critical Juncture

Eduardo Guerrero-Gutiérrez, Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Lantia Intelligence

Under the Trump administration, expectations around U.S.-Mexico security cooperation are shifting from process to results. Washington’s message is increasingly explicit: Cooperation is no longer judged by dialogue frameworks or incremental progress, but by tangible outcomes that quickly affect U.S. security, particularly the disruption of transnational criminal networks linked to fentanyl.

Recent actions show both progress and constraints. The transfer of 37 high-profile criminals to U.S. prisons and the arrest of Ryan Wedding in Mexico City signal greater cooperation, yet they are still viewed as episodic. U.S. officials, including the Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, have stated openly that Mexico’s incremental approach is insufficient given the scale of the threat.

In Washington, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s security strategy is seen as pragmatic but cautious, shaped by concerns over sovereignty and the cohesion of her governing coalition. Mexico faces structural obstacles (weak local governance, chronically corrupt police forces, and territorial control by organized crime) that limit the possibility of rapid results without substantial and diversified U.S. support.

Domestic political constraints further complicate cooperation. Arresting senior political figures linked to organized crime within the governing coalition could trigger costly internal divisions and jeopardize Morena’s electoral dominance. This reality makes it harder to deliver the “results” Washington demands: sustained reductions in fentanyl flows, high-level prosecutions, and measurable disruption of criminal governance.

This debate unfolds alongside a broader shift in U.S. security policy. The National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy reduce tolerance for incremental progress and have reopened discussions of unilateral action. Any unilateral kinetic U.S. action in Mexico, however, would risk damaging bilateral cooperation, provoking nationalist backlash, and generating political instability; outcomes that would ultimately benefit criminal organizations.
 

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Security Cooperation Without Reassurance

Ben Rohrbaugh, Senior Fellow, Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin

The recent extradition of 37 alleged gang members from Mexico to the United States, the third round in the last year, is a clear signal of the Sheinbaum administration’s accommodating security posture toward the Trump administration. U.S. reporting about President Sheinbaum’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Omar García Harfuch, including a New York Times profile in December describing surging bilateral intelligence sharing, suggests U.S. officials see him as a cooperative and effective interlocutor.

Overhanging all of this is the preeminent goal for Mexican policymakers of avoiding unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico. The challenge for Mexico is that the U.S. policy has become so personalized and inconsistent that it is not clear whether any specific results would satisfy President Trump other than temporarily. Operations against fentanyl smuggling have led to clear recent progress, with overdoses in the United States declining since 2023 and dramatic drops in southwest border fentanyl seizures in 2025, yet President Trump designated fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction in December 2025 and has escalated threats of military action.

Based on the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy and behavior over the last year, the main goal is to assert U.S. preeminence in North America and the Western Hemisphere, and periodic increases in tension with Mexico are a means to reinforce U.S. dominance. The result is a cycle of continuously escalating U.S. threats, such as when President Trump recently said the United States would “start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels,” followed by conciliatory actions from Mexico that temporarily reduce the likelihood of unilateral U.S. action. This is an unstable situation that seems increasingly likely to break down.
 

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Improving Mexico-U.S. Trust and Cooperation Against Crime

Earl Anthony Wayne, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Project on Prosperity and Development

Mexico and the United States need to find new paths to rebuild trust and deepen confidence in the fight against organized crime. Both countries possess significant assets, but sustaining effective cooperation requires durable mechanisms that generate trust, predictability, and expand positive results over time.

Some on the U.S. side will be tempted to press for unilateral U.S. action to achieve bolder results, but this should not undermine the fruitful ground possible with building more mutually agreed collaboration, including more U.S. cooperation.

Trust needs to be nurtured produce better results for both countries. This is worth much more than rapid, uncoordinated moves that hit criminal groups, but weaken cooperation and build mistrust. The goal should be to forge a productive path toward a sustainable way forward. That should be the goal for both countries, and it will demand hard work by both. The alternatives could be very costly for the United States and Mexico.

Each country brings critical capabilities to this enterprise, but success depends on finding mutually acceptable ways to build lasting confidence and to support bringing to justice more of those responsible for crime and weakening the vast criminal enterprises operating across North America.

This moment offers an opportunity for a renewed push to deepen bilateral cooperation on security and justice through more consistent information sharing on criminal groups’ activities, more coordinated efforts to disrupt those groups, faster transfers of arrested individuals to the jurisdictions best positioned to prosecute them, and stronger institutional safeguards to ensure that results endure.

This will not be easy. It will require systems for careful vetting of individuals in key positions on both sides and sustained engagement by senior leaders to preserve cooperation despite inevitable disagreements.

Given the importance of strengthening cooperation on trade, migration, and crime, building a more solid and reliable anti-crime system would deliver benefits that support a wide range of policy areas. Such an effort would require not only a strong initial agreement among national teams but also a sustained commitment to deepen cooperation across the federal level and, over time, at state and local levels. The results could be impressive.