Sheinbaum presses security agenda amid US pressure and cartel violence
Mexico’s president is trying to define her rule through cartel crackdowns, cautious pragmatism and resistance to pressure from Washington.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
4 min read
President Claudia Sheinbaum has moved to show that Mexico can confront organised crime without accepting U.S. intervention, Al Jazeera reported. Her response to cartel violence and pressure from President Donald Trump has become a central test of the first woman elected to lead Mexico.
Al Jazeera traced Sheinbaum’s politics to a childhood shaped by Mexico’s 1968 protest movement, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party crushed student demonstrations. Sheinbaum has recalled visiting protest leader Raul Alvarez Garín in Lecumberri prison with her parents, and she has described him as a mentor.
The 1968 crackdown at Mexico City’s Plaza de las Tres Culturas left estimates of up to 300 people dead and more than 1,000 arrested, according to Al Jazeera. The episode became part of the political inheritance that later fed Sheinbaum’s activism and career on the Mexican left.
Sheinbaum, born in Mexico City in 1962 to scientist parents of Jewish heritage, studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, according to Al Jazeera. As a teenager and student, she joined protests, supported workers’ and peasant movements and took part in activism against repression under PRI rule.
Baltazar Gómez Pérez, a longtime friend and UNAM history professor, told Al Jazeera that Sheinbaum’s election carried special weight in a country he described as macho and chronically in crisis. He called the presidency a “Herculean task.”
Her political rise was closely tied to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president from 2018 to 2024, according to Al Jazeera. She served as Mexico City’s environment secretary after López Obrador became mayor in 2000, later worked with his movement and won election as mayor of the capital in 2018.
Al Jazeera reported that many observers expected Sheinbaum to govern as a replica of López Obrador, widely known as AMLO. Instead, the climate scientist has taken a more technocratic and security-focused approach while keeping core ties to the Morena movement he founded.
That difference has shown most sharply in security policy. Al Jazeera reported that during Sheinbaum’s time as Mexico City mayor, the capital’s homicide rate fell by roughly half after her administration raised police pay, created an intelligence unit and hired thousands of officers.
Critics cited by Al Jazeera said disappearances also rose during that period, complicating claims of progress. Cristina Reyes, general manager of Mexico United Against Crime, told Al Jazeera that extortion reaches ordinary businesses and households, while arguing that Mexico’s militarised anti-cartel strategy strengthened and fragmented criminal groups.
As president, Sheinbaum has faced a sharper confrontation with Washington. Al Jazeera reported that after a U.S. raid in Caracas in January, Trump suggested the United States could expand anti-cartel operations onto Mexican land. Sheinbaum rejected foreign intervention, saying cooperation was acceptable but subordination was not.
Weeks later, Mexican forces targeted Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to Al Jazeera. The report said special forces stormed a gated compound near Tapalpa after federal authorities received intelligence that he was there, and that he was later found mortally wounded in nearby woods after a firefight.
Trump continued to demand stronger action against crime and drugs after the operation, Al Jazeera reported. The White House has also applied trade pressure through tariffs and by declining to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in its current form.
Sheinbaum’s scientific background has not insulated her from criticism on climate and infrastructure. Al Jazeera reported that she contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, but critics including UNAM climatologist Ruth Cerezo-Mota said her administration in Mexico City accepted projects that harmed green areas and continued Morena’s limited emphasis on environmental policy.
Al Jazeera reported that Sheinbaum has tried to project a practical style distinct from AMLO while retaining some of his common-touch politics. During Mexico’s World Cup opener against South Africa, she was seen watching from a fan zone in the capital after giving her stadium ticket to a young female fan.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.