US and Mexico vow to fight crime while respecting sovereignty

A soldier assigned to the Joint Task Force/Southern Border provides surveillance at the US border wall in Douglas, Ariz., April 21, 2025. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)

By EDWARD WONG

The United States and Mexico said earlier this week that they would move forward with security cooperation to dismantle organized crime groups, focusing on drug-trafficking cartels, and to limit migration while respecting each other’s “sovereignty.”

That seemed to indicate that the Trump administration could limit unilateral cross-border actions against suspected criminals. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico had made clear that any U.S. incursions would be unacceptable.

The announcement came in a joint statement after Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Sheinbaum at her office in Mexico City on Wednesday morning, along with Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s foreign minister, and its security minister, Omar García Harfuch.

The statement lacked details, except to say that the governments would form a bilateral “high level” group to coordinate actions.

“We both understand that cartels are a threat to the national security of both Mexico and the U.S.,” Rubio said at a news conference, adding that the governments were engaged in “cooperation that respects the integrity and sovereignty of both countries.”

Rubio praised Mexico for arresting dozens of people whom the U.S. government considers to be “high-value targets” and transporting them to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.

“There’s no other government that’s cooperating as much with us in the fight against crime as Mexico,” Rubio said.

Sheinbaum wrote on social media later Wednesday that she had had a “cordial meeting” with Rubio, and that the two governments had reached an understanding on security cooperation after months of discussions.

De la Fuente praised the joint anti-crime efforts between the two countries, while saying there are “particularly sensitive and complex” issues in the relationship that the nations needed to handle carefully. He said that as long as the governments respect “each country’s sovereignty, each country’s territorial integrity,” the cooperation would be fruitful.

Sheinbaum and her aides have been trying to cooperate with the Trump administration on major issues, notably counternarcotics efforts and limits on migration. But they are also trying to project resistance to what many Mexicans consider to be bullying by an American leader.

Sheinbaum also aims to show that her administration is willing to investigate powerful political figures in Mexico who have been linked to the drug trade.

Rubio is making his third trip to Latin America as secretary of state and has scheduled meetings in Mexico and Ecuador. While representing Florida as a Republican senator for 14 years, he tried to shape policy across Latin America, taking a hard line on Cuba, where his parents are from, and on Venezuela.

Rubio praised the U.S. military’s lethal strike on Tuesday against a boat in the Caribbean. Trump said that the boat was being used by drug traffickers traveling from Venezuela and that 11 people had been killed.

He and Rubio gave different accounts of the likely destination of the boat on Tuesday — Rubio said it was probably going to Trinidad and Tobago or elsewhere in the Caribbean, while Trump said it was bound for the United States.

At the news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday, Rubio said that the boat’s eventual destination was the United States, and that destroying such vessels was necessary to stop drug shipments.

“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” he said, adding that Trump aimed to “wage war” on drug cartels.

Rubio said criminal groups and the traffickers working for them, including those on the boat Tuesday, “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period.” Trump can use any means to end the threat, he said.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders,” he said, the United States blew up the boat. “And it’ll happen again.”

Trump has tried to project greater U.S. power across the Americas. He has also threatened the governments of Canada, Greenland, Mexico and Panama.

Trump and Rubio say Mexico must crack down harder on drug cartels, even though law enforcement agencies under Sheinbaum have made many more arrests compared to those of recent administrations. Trump has said the cartels are responsible for the fentanyl addiction problem in the United States.

Trump has signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to take military action against certain Latin American drug cartels that the administration has labeled terrorist organizations.

Several large Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, are among the criminal groups in Latin America that the State Department in February designated foreign terrorist organizations.

Mexican officials are asking their U.S. counterparts to clamp down on the flow of weapons from the United States to Mexico. Mexican cartels are using military-grade weapons in combat with one another and against law enforcement agencies.

Rubio said Wednesday that ending the arms shipments would be one focus of the new coordination group.