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Though the relationship between the United States and Mexico has rarely been perfect, recent tensions have only seemed to increase between the two countries as a whole, as well as between the United States government and the cartels in Mexico. But how did we get here? Cartels like MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, and Jalisco New Generation Cartel are some of the biggest and most dangerous drug cartels to currently come from Mexico; their offshoots to other countries after being caught and deported by the US have only made things worse. This article will seek to dive into the causes of these tense relationships and what this means for future relations.

The first major area where conflict has arisen is the crackdown on drugs in the United States. By 2007 in the US, Mexican Cartels “controlled an estimated 90% of the cocaine entering the US,” and in 2017, “Americans spent $53 billion on illegal drugs, including cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine” (CFR.org Editors, 2025). The cartels depend on the American citizens for their livelihood, and when they lose access to 90% of their clientele, they are not exactly going to be happy with that. The cartels have also begun to bring in more synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, which has greatly contributed to the United States’ ongoing fentanyl crisis, an issue that President Trump has also promised to crack down on (Trump, 2025). This also increased conflict across North America by including Canada. The cartels’ main influx comes from selling drugs, and taking away a major avenue for them to do so would be expected to come with a lot of anger and disapproval, leading to threats against American tourists and increased violence in Mexico.

A second reason that can be credited for increased conflict and anger among the cartels is the mass deportation that has been occurring on the US-Mexico border. Though the history of the US-Mexico immigration relationship spans back to 1810, this specific conflict began at the start of President Trump's first term in 2016. President Trump’s campaign ran on the promise of building the wall to stop undocumented immigrants from crossing the border, as well as by ending the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which led to threats of tariffs from both sides (Council on Foreign Relations, 2025). Though a trade war was avoided, this started to push disapproval of President Trump in Mexico, especially among the cartels, who would be greatly impacted by the control a wall would have over the US Southern border.

Mass deportation throughout President Trump’s second term can largely be attributed to the growing anger as well. In February, just over a month after his second term began, Mexico and the United States made a deal to export 29 cartel members from Mexico to the United States so that they could be tried for drug trafficking and other crimes committed in the US (Dienst et al., 2025). It is well known that President Trump ran his second campaign based on a promise to secure the border even more than he carried out in his first term, which would greatly decrease the avenues for the cartels to go across the Southern US border.

Along with this, the United States Republican representatives have been fighting to assert new offenses as deportable through legislation, such as H.R.30, H.R.875, and H.R.6057 (H.R.30 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Preventing Violence against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, 2025). Mass deportation of immigrants greatly limits the routes available for drug distribution, assistance in migrating to the US, etc. The increased deportation, along with no end in sight, makes a profound impact on the danger these cartels can bring to the United States, which brings along hostility and violence from already notoriously violent groups. Although cartel members are getting arrested and deported from the US, their threat to American soil does not stop. Groups like MS-13 have found ways to become transnational threats because those who have been deported develop offshoots overseas with others who will harbor them (Nahal T., 2025). Members of the cartel know that neither the US nor Mexican government will allow them to leave peacefully and continue to take part in the cartel’s activities, so developing offshoot relationships is crucial to keep the cartels going, and is crucial for the US and Mexico to learn how to shut them down.

One attempt to counteract these new relationships is to label Mexican cartels as terrorist groups, which has only brought up more violence. For example, following the arrest of Ismael Zambada in August of 2024, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent in Mexico, violence erupted throughout Sinaloa (AlJazeera Staff, 2025). Citizens of Sinaloa have also increasingly gone missing since his arrest, but violence is not an uncommon response to the arrests of major cartel leaders (AlJazeera Staff, 2025). In August of 2025, and continuously since then, the United States Department of State has issued a Level 2 travel warning over Mexico as a country and has now labeled certain cities and their associated cartels as terrorist organizations (Mexico Travel Advisory | Travel.State.gov, 2025). Designating these cartels as terrorist organizations “provides US law enforcement and the military more legal tools to go after cartels and others affiliated with them” (Nahal T., 2025). This means the United States can go after the cartels in a new set of ways, but some of those ideal actions are being denied by Mexico’s President Sheinbaum, making it seem as though the US is the only one to be carrying out legal action against the cartels. This depiction of the US’s “war” on the cartels will only continue to decrease tensions when the cartels see the US as the sole bad guy. President Sheinbaum heavily rejected President Trump’s offer to begin military strikes on Mexican cities to kill the cartel members, which has only added to the cartel's anger and violence towards the United States (Mexican President Rejects Trump’s Offer of Military Intervention against Cartels, 2025). The offer of military strikes is violent and especially threatening, meaning the cartel members likely take it as such. This is why the new threats by cartels towards American tourists are equally concerning, because if the United States is willing to threaten with violence, the cartels are willing to threaten back.

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References

CFR.org Editors. (2025). Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels. Council on Foreign Relations.
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Council on Foreign Relations. (2025). Council on Foreign Relations.��
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Dienst, J., Blankstein, A., & Press, T. A. (2025). Mexico deports 29 drug cartel figures to the U.S. as officials meet with Trump team. NBC News.��
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H.R.30 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. (2025). Congress.gov.
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Mexican president rejects Trump’s offer of military intervention against cartels. (2025). POLITICO; Associated Press.��
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Mexico Travel Advisory | Travel.State.gov. (2025). State.gov.��
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Nahal T. (2025). Why Trump’s War on the Drug Cartels Is Bound to Backfire. POLITICO; Politico.��
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Staff, A. J. (2025). Why has the US issued a “terrorism” travel alert for Mexico? Al Jazeera.��
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Trump, D. (2025). Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Amends Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across our Northern Border. The White House.��