Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insists almost daily that there is no break with the government of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. But the data she releases each week reveals that the "hugs, not bullets" policy appears to be coming to an end.

After more than a decade of failures and violence in the war on drugs declared by President Felipe Calderón in 2006, AMLO came to power in 2018 with the idea that, instead of fighting organized crime, it was more appropriate to address the causes of violence, such as poverty and lack of opportunity, and promote dialogue between established power groups.

Sheinbaum says that this line is still valid, but immediately releases results that speak differently: tons of drugs seized, arrests, laboratories bombed. Two, three, four times what was reported in the previous six-year term.

"We are seizing in Mexico, preventing it from happening to the other side," the president commented at a recent press conference. “That means we're doing something right, right?” he asked himself.

For any Mexican president, anti-drug policy represents an enormous challenge because, no matter how sovereign they declare themselves, part of it is formulated by the United States, the powerful neighbor to the north that buys 80% of Mexican exports and that, with just that one piece of data among many others, can condition Mexico's room for maneuver.

If before AMLO was able to attempt—and many would say failed—a change in strategy toward crime, today Sheinbaum seems to have no choice but to return to the iron fist of yesteryear.

And the results, the president boasts, are clear to see.

Results in the midst of negotiation

Much of the shift in anti-drug policy has to do with the arrival of Omar García Harfuch as Secretary of Security,the former police officer who, during Sheinbaum's mayoralty in Mexico City, managed to reduce homicides in the capital and improve the feeling of insecurity.

Last week, Harfuch announced the consolidated results of his portfolio: since October 1, he reported, 24,652 people have been arrested for high-impact crimes, 1,150 illicit drug labs have been dismantled, and 178 tons of narcotics have been seized, including more than 3 million fentanyl pills, the opioid that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the United States.

Anti-drug policy, then, is a matter for the head of Security, who in turn announced the seizure of 12,736 firearms and has militarized the northern border in an attempt to prevent the illegal passage of migrants, which has seen its largest reduction in decades.

But if part of this is due to the presence of Harfuch, much is also attributed to the pressure exerted by Donald Trump, who uses threats of tariffs on imports or deportation of Mexican migrants or taxes on the remittances they send to achieve what he obsesses over: stopping migration and fentanyl trafficking.

That pressure again generated news on Thursday, when the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three Mexican financial entities for allegedly facilitating the purchase of fentanyl precursors in China by cartels and laundering illegal money.

Sheinbaum rejected the sanctions, asked for evidence of the illicit activities and reiterated: "We coordinate, we collaborate, but we do not subordinate ourselves. Mexico is a great country and the relationship with the U.S. is one of equals, not subordination. We are not anyone's piñata."

That same Thursday, however, the National Banking and Securities Commission announced the intervention of two of the sanctioned banks with the aim of renewing their management. investigate what happened and protect public assets.

Changes with Limited Power

Sheinbaum, who is enormously popular and whose party controls the legislative and judicial branches, is trying to align her interests with Trump's; attacking money laundering, for example, or going after drug traffickers.

"It's a real crusade, but it's based on a fragile condition," warns David Saucedo, a consultant and security expert, "because the security budget hasn't been increased, because a portion of the military distrusts Harfuch, because the cartels are stronger than ever, and because the institutions are riddled with corruption."

Saucedo adds: "As long as there's demand for drugs in the United States, it's very difficult for the fight against crime in Mexico to have any effect, because you can double or triple seizures, but it will still be a marginal percentage, less than 10%.of the total exported by traffickers."

In February, when the negotiations were just beginning, Trump praised Sheinbaum for "achieving" that Mexico not be a country of consumption with prevention campaigns. And he announced that he would copy her: "We are going to spend billions of dollars explaining how bad drugs are."

But neither Trump has launched prevention campaigns nor has Sheinbaum been able to implement what would truly be her anti-drug policy. One, for example, like the one she developed in the capital's mayor's office, based on the decriminalization of addictions and the reduction of consumption through education.

"What was done in the city was very interesting, it had a focus on health and responded to her profile as a scientist," says Zara Snapp, activist and drug policy expert. "But now Sheinbaum faces two impediments: AMLO's legacy of a prohibitionist policy toward consumption, and Trump, who is asking to return to militarization.”

The expert adds: “They can announce more and more seizures, but we know that this has a very marginal impact on illegal consumption and leads us to the scientifically erroneous diagnosis that you can eradicate consumption with punitive actions.”

There are signs that Mexico is ending its “hugs, not bullets” policy, but as a replacement, rather than an innovative strategy focused on health, Trump seems to have forced a return to the “war on drugs.”

Although Sheinbaum, almost daily, says that this war “will not return.”

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