MEXICO CITY — President Trump telephoned his Mexican counterpart after the takedown of the cartel leader known as “El Mencho” and the ensuing violence south of the border and asked: “What’s going on in Mexico? How are things?”
The cordial conversation Monday lasted about eight minutes, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told journalists Wednesday during her regular morning news conference.
The two spoke of Sunday’s sensational raid that resulted in the death of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, longtime leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of two major organized-crime syndicates responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States.
Mexican authorities have insisted, and U.S. officials have agreed, that no American forces were present on the ground, but intelligence from Washington played an important role in finding and confronting the long-elusive capo, according to both Mexican and U.S. accounts.
Cooperation between the the two nations went “very well,” Sheinbaum said she told Trump.
Oseguera was discovered hiding out in a wooded retreat in western Jalisco state after authorities tracked a female companion who was visiting, the Mexican military said.
But Trump, in his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, depicted the demise of El Mencho as solely a U.S. success, declaring: “We’ve also taken down one of the most sinister kingpins. You saw that yesterday.”
The remark drew thunderous applause before the joint session of the U.S. Congress.
Trump didn’t mention Mexico’s central role in El Mencho’s takedown.
On social media, many Mexican commentators objected to Trump taking credit for a high-risk operation. At least 25 Mexican National Guard troops were killed, Mexican authorities say, as supporters of the slain cartel boss took to the streets and lashed out in a spasm of violence that spread across the country.
“What cynicism from Trump,” said one commentator on X. “Mexican heroes died!”
The 25 National Guard deaths marked the greatest single-day casualty count for Mexican security forces in years, if not decades.
But other commentators credited Trump with strong-arming Mexico into confronting the cartels.
Sheinbaum, wrote Lilly Tellez, an opposition Mexican senator, “doesn’t proceed with conviction, but because of pressure from a foreign president, Trump.”
Sheinbaum shrugged off Trump’s version of Sunday’s raid.
“We know President Trump,” Sheinbaum said, contradicting the U.S. leader but not attacking him. “But the information we have given is correct.”
The Mexican president has strenuously resisted Trump’s offer to deploy U.S. military assets to assist on the ground against Mexican cartels. Direct U.S. action, she has insisted, would be a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.
Earlier in his State of the Union address, Trump repeated his longtime assertion that “large parts of Mexico — really large parts of Mexico — have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.” He credited U.S. efforts with reducing illicit drug trafficking, especially of fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid that, according to U.S. authorities, is mostly produced in Mexico and then smuggled into U.S. territory.
The U.S. leader made no mention of ongoing Mexican enforcement efforts that have seen large-scale seizures of illicit drugs, destruction of clandestine laboratories, and the arrests of scores of cartel operatives. In the last year or so, the Mexican government has sent almost 100 cartel suspects to the United States to face prosecution.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
