President Sheinbaum's security strategy

Mexico's most pressing issue needs more than short-term fixes.

Claudia Sheinbaum was inaugurated yesterday. Like any Mexican leader, she faces a complex criminal panorama. Her first weeks in office will underscore her administration’s strategy, and give clues as to how successful it might ultimately be. This isn’t media conjecture; it is part of the president’s stated security strategy for her first 100 days.

Under Andrés Manuel López Obrador her predecessor and mentor, going after organised crime hardly seemed like a priority. On the contrary, López Obrador denied basic facts about crime in Mexico, claiming, for example, that fentanyl was not produced there. He also seemed oddly at ease comforting the families of known kingpins or lambasting US prosecutions of Mexican drug traffickers.

Sheinbaum faces a tough hand. Besides the security panorama, López Obrador has left office in a blaze of reforms, such as ensuring judges will be elected by voters.

López Obrador has now stepped down and Sheinbaum must outline her own security plan. During her campaign, her mantra was that she would bring peace to the country, just as she did in the capital. That would be a remarkable achievement, as homicides dropped by over 50% in Mexico City during Sheinbaum’s time as mayor (2018-2024).

The man credited with that success is by her side: Omar García Harfuch. He effectively presented himself to the public as a "soldier-cop" of sorts during his time as Sheinbaum’s security secretary in Mexico City. They’re now looking to recreate that success at a national scale, as the president has appointed García Harfuch as her federal Security Secretary.

World of Crime and The Mexico Political Economist jointly analyse her major priorities.

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World of Crime, The Mexico Political Economist, and Americas Market Intelligence will be holding an exclusive Mexico Risk Masterclass on October 17, covering the country’s recent controversial judicial reforms, the specter of US import tariffs, drug cartels taking over businesses, and insider insights into the brand new administration.

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Improving citizen perception

Under López Obrador, the narrative around citizen security took an interesting turn. He managed to keep his popularity high, even without a solid security plan, largely thanks to a focus on social programs. But now, as president Claudia Sheinbaum steps into the spotlight, she faces the daunting task of reshaping how citizens perceive security—especially with recent spikes in violence, particularly in the northwestern regions, where factions of the Sinaloa Cartel are in a brutal civil war.

López Obrador made some bold claims about crime rates—an 18% drop in homicides, a 30% reduction in robberies, and a 77% decrease in kidnappings. But those numbers don’t necessarily match the feelings on the ground. In March, 61% of Mexican adults claimed to feel unsafe. 

While public confidence in the Mexican armed forces and the National Guard remain high, faith in how the government runs security is low. Sheinbaum will need to be transparent and roll out tangible security benefits that people can feel. 

Enter García Harfuch. Fresh off his success in Mexico City, a solid investigative track record, and a survivor of an assassination attempt by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the new security secretary is hoping to make a fresh start. But how much power he will have is up for debate.

What to do with the National Guard?

The National Guard was established by López Obrador in 2019, aiming to tackle Mexico's rampant violence and crime. Early in López Obrador’s tenure, the dissolution of the Federal Police gave way to its replacement by the National Guard, a militarised gendarmerie. This gave the national security force the firepower to deal with Mexico’s heavily armed organised crime, but it deprived them of the civilian investigative powers needed to effectively prosecute the criminals. 

Just before Sheinbaum took office, the National Guard was formally transferred to be under military control. This move raised alarms among critics, who see this as the final step toward militarised public security. 

This is a sensitive topic in Mexico. It raises specters from the era of president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), who unleashed the Mexican army against drug cartels, kicking off almost two decades of skyrocketing homicide rates.

The National Guard reform will give the body far more scope to conduct investigations that might lead to prosecutions. 

In Mexico, most crime goes unpunished, often not because of the ineptitude of judges, but because of malpractice at the lower levels of the investigative process. Evidence is lost or tampered with; suspects are sometimes even tortured, so when it all comes out in court, the judge is forced to declare a mistrial. The government’s bet is that the National Guard will be more adept. Whether or not this will happen remains unknown, but it does give García Harfuch better access to the tools he worked with in Mexico City, namely the close coordination with security forces, investigators, prosecutors, and judges.

Many of the above roles are now bundled up in the National Guard, which will be tasked with executing a national security plan designed by García Harfuch. Whether they will dance to his tune or to the Defense Ministry’s—which gets to execute García Harfuch’s plan after having been given control of the National Guard by the reform—also remains to be seen.

A hundred days, six municipalities, five states

Sheinbaum’s security plan identifies six municipalities across five states as focal points in her security strategy: Tijuana in Baja California, León and Celaya in Guanajuato, Benito Juárez in Quintana Roo, Acapulco in Guerrero, and Colima, the eponymous capital of Colima state. 

First 100 day security strategy

These are all critically violent hotspots. But simply pointing at them and declaring them priorities doesn’t solve anything. A “one-approach-fits-all” strategy will fail and likely make things worse. It’s vital to recognise that these regions are not merely statistics on a map; they are complex ecosystems of crime influenced by unique social, economic, and political factors. 

Getting to grips with these complexities will likely take more than 100 days. It is difficult to believe any meaningful change could be enacted in that time. 

León and Celaya in Guanajuato are embroiled in a brutal conflict primarily between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Cartel Santa Rosa de Lima, and local gangs fighting over oil theft.

In Baja California, Tijuana serves as the main gateway for synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine into the US. That has made it one of the more consistently deadly places in the country and one of the first parts of Mexico to experience a fentanyl crisis of its own. A long-term power struggle there between the CJNG and Sinaloa Cartel will likely become even more complex with the current fragmentation of the latter.

Chihuahua’s Ciudad Juárez has seen drivers of violence gradually shift from drug trafficking to control of the lucrative migrant smuggling industry, as thousands wait near the city in limbo to try and cross the border.

Guerrero, particularly Acapulco, faces a staggering number of smaller criminal groups competing for control over extortion and local drug trafficking. Guerrero was formerly a center for growing marijuana and opium poppy, but demand for these has been curtailed with the decriminalisation of marijuana and the rise of cheaper, more potent synthetic alternatives. Criminal groups in Guerrero have switched to extortion, with chicken producers and public transport operators among those severely affected.

In Jalisco and Colima, the CJNG’s dominance has created a climate of fear and violence that requires a sustained and strategic response. While all Mexican crime groups use violence as a means to an end, the CJNG uses hyper-violence as a constant tactic, even in areas where it faces no serious rivals.

The capital of Colima’s proximity to the port of Manzanillo makes it a critical hub to control access to the port and highway routes toward the US. 

Reducing lime extortion

Apart from the consistent criminal hotspots, there are seasonal waves that hit different parts of the country at different times.

The worsening of lime extortion in Michoacán has made headlines in Mexico in recent weeks, with producers stopping work for a few days in protest at escalating and violent demands from criminal groups. The producers returned to work, but not before bringing attention to the unbearable conditions under which they labour.

Sheinbaum certainly seems to have heard them. Her security plan prominently mentions focusing on reducing extortion of lime producers in six areas of Michoacán.

But this choice is a cause for concern. It appears to be a reactive choice by the new government, driven more by current headlines than by a comprehensive understanding of how extortion has become a necessity for criminal groups across the country. The plan does not lay out how the government will address prevention, making the strategy akin to a game of whack-a-mole than a genuine plan to address crime at its roots.

The municipalities identified in Michoacán by Sheinbaum’s plan have been under the boot heel of cartels like the CJNG for years, with avocado farmers also famously threatened, robbed, and murdered.

But if Michoacán’s agricultural sector is the best-known extortion hotspot in Mexico, the government is ignoring several others. Cattle ranchers in Jalisco, fishermen in Baja California, hotel and restaurant owners at Pacific and Caribbean resorts, cargo truck drivers shaken down or hijacked on major highways; systematic extortion is changing the way organised crime groups finance themselves. This has greatly increased the risk of exposure to organised crime threats to even the largest companies and their suppliers. 

The road ahead

Like any new president, Sheinbaum is looking to make her mark quickly. That is particularly needed given the speculation that López Obrador will seek to influence her government behind the scenes.

Mexico’s anti-cartel strategies have failed time and time again for prioritising short-term achievements over long-term commitment. For extortion, migrant smuggling, and synthetic drugs, the barrier to entry for major criminal economies is lower than ever. The conflict within the Sinaloa Cartel, a group that underpinned Mexico’s drug trafficking landscape for over two decades, has thrown another spanner in the works.

Sheinbaum and García Harfuch have a hard task ahead. They will soon need to reveal their vision for Mexico’s security, far beyond the first 100 days.