Mexico’s president on Friday warned U.S. gunmakers they could face fresh legal action and be deemed accomplices if Washington designates Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.
“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our U.S. lawsuit,” Claudia Sheinbaum said at a daily press conference.
A new charge could include alleged “complicity” of gunmakers with terror groups, she said.
Sheinbaum said the U.S. Justice Department itself has recognized that “74% of the weapons” used by criminal groups in Mexico come from north of the border.
An estimated 200,000 to half a million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year, “60 Minutes” reported in December.
A 2023 CBS Reports investigation found that dozens of cartel gunrunning networks, operating like terrorist cells, pay Americans to buy weapons from gun stores and online dealers all across the country, as far north as Wisconsin and even Alaska, according to U.S. intelligence sources. The firearms are then shipped across the southwest border through a chain of brokers and couriers.
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On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the U.S. State Department plans to classify criminal groups from Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador and Venezuela as “terrorist organizations.”
The cartels targeted in Mexico are the Sinaloa cartel, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, the Northeast cartel, the Michoacan family and the United cartel, the Times reported.
Mexico has already filed a lawsuit in the United States against U.S. arms manufacturers and vendors, claiming $10 billion in damages for their alleged role in criminal violence in the country.
Earlier this month, Sheinbaum angrily rejected an accusation by the United States that her government has an alliance with drug cartels.
“We categorically reject the slander made by the White House against the Mexican government about alliances with criminal organizations,” the president wrote on social media at the time.
“If there is such an alliance anywhere, it is in the U.S. gun shops that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups,” she added.
Last month, Sheinbaum launched a campaign to crack down on the number of weapons on the country’s streets by offering cash to those who anonymously leave weapons at designated drop-off locations, including churches.
Earlier this week, Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla said U.S. military aircraft may have spied on cartels during recent flights near Mexican territory. Asked whether the aircraft had spied on Mexican drug traffickers, the general said: “We can’t rule it out because we don’t know what they did.”
Tensions between the closely connected neighbors soared after the White House said Trump would slap tariffs of 25% on both Mexican and Canadian goods because of illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
The threatened tariffs have since been halted for 30 days.
