President Trump is signaling a new stage in interventionist policy toward Mexico, using the same old U.S. “security” argument of fighting “terrorism,” but now in a context defined by the decline of U.S. global hegemony. Since his first term, he has upheld the Republican Party’s plan to advance its imperialist agenda at home and abroad. Now, Trump has promised to deploy the armed forces in a “war on drug trafficking.” Both Mexican cartels and Chinese companies have been labeled as foreign terrorist organizations.

Trump’s aggression toward Mexico has been constant—evident to the whole world in the mass raids against migrants inside the U.S.—and it now continues with his push to violate Mexican sovereignty under the guise of combating drug trafficking. This policy is clearly racist and xenophobic, since it never targets the U.S. police or politicians without whose complicity fentanyl or cocaine could never be distributed in the country. These are the actors who amass huge fortunes at the cost of the extreme violence endured across all the countries south of the Rio Grande.

This imperialist bluster exposes the hypocrisy of a power unwilling to address the root causes of its own public health crisis (the greed of Big Pharma, the free flow of weapons from its manufacturers, and the money laundering by its banks). It also exposes the role of governments like that of Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum—and the limits of their “nationalism.”

Sheinbaum’s Two Policies toward Trump

Faced with the threat of a “punitive expedition” (like that of 1919–20, launched against General Francisco Villa), Sheinbaum’s government has followed a predictable script. On one hand, it has issued strong statements drawing a “red line” and firmly rejecting any U.S. troop presence on Mexican soil. “Our sovereignty is a red line,” the president declares, seeking to tap into the deep and legitimate anti-interventionist sentiment of the Mexican people, forged through a history of dispossession and aggression. She also seeks to distinguish herself from the open servility of past neoliberal PRI and PAN governments.

This rhetorical defense of sovereignty, however, collapses when confronted with the facts. While rejecting the U.S. military boot, Sheinbaum accepts the silk glove of “collaboration,” imagining that diplomacy between the world’s foremost imperialist power and a dependent country can shield Mexico from Trump’s interventionist plans.

Although Sheinbaum claims to seek “respect” in the bilateral relationship, her government has not just maintained but deepened Mexico’s strategic subordination to the dictates of the White House in key areas such as security, intelligence, migration, and militarization. In practice, Mexico acts as the main migration enforcer for the U.S. on both its northern and southern borders. Intensified operations inside Mexican territory have caused a historic drop in border crossings—fully satisfying one of Trump’s top demands.

Meanwhile, Sheinbaum’s “vigorous offensive” against the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Omar García Harfuch, has deployed hundreds of soldiers. This is a direct concession to Washington’s pressure. U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson even boasted that fentanyl seizures had declined because of “greater cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.” Similarly, the extradition of 29 high-profile cartel leaders to stand trial in U.S. courts is another example in which the Mexican government has traded away the country’s sovereignty to stave off Trump’s economic threats.

To this must be added the recent legal approval of biometric data collection for population registration in Mexico, in line with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s demand to share such data.

Sheinbaum’s “red line” is, in fact, flexible and negotiable. An open military intervention is rejected—because it would spark an international scandal, mark a sharp escalation in imperialist interference, and be politically disastrous for her government. But covert intervention and subordinated cooperation are accepted and even deepened. Despite a massive propaganda campaign to make the Sheinbaum administration appear different from the neoliberals, this is sovereignty managed, not defended.

The Hypocrisy of the Right

In this context, Mexico’s traditional right wingers, represented by the PRI and PAN parties, have displayed their cynicism, offering no alternative. How could they, when they have been the greatest sellouts in national history since Antonio López de Santa Anna?¹Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876) is widely regarded as a political opportunist who repeatedly switched allegiances, ceded territory under pressure (notably Texas in 1836), sold land to the U.S. in the 1854 Gadsden Purchase, and enriched himself while in office. Their criticisms of the militarization they themselves initiated at Washington’s orders, or of Morena officials’ alleged ties to organized crime—a practice they know inside out—are pure demagogy. They are the architects of neoliberalism and of NAFTA, which bound the Mexican economy to the whims of U.S. capital, laying the foundations for today’s dependence. Their project has never been national sovereignty but competing with Morena over who gets to manage the same dependent model.

And while they now seek to weaponize the case of Adán Augusto’s alleged links to drug trafficking via his state security chief Hernán Bermúdez, “La Barredora,” it is well known that several PRI and PAN figures have their own deep ties to organized crime—starting with Genaro García Luna, now imprisoned in the United States.

Against this openly pro-imperialist right wing, the only viable response is the broadest possible repudiation, coupled with a clear stance independent from Morena’s government—which, beyond its rhetoric, maintains fundamental subordination to U.S. imperialism.

An Independent Way Forward for Workers

Trump’s order poses a real danger to the people of Mexico and Latin America as a whole. This is in line with U.S. imperialist interventionism in Venezuela, which has imposed severe economic sanctions and even threatened military intervention while backing coups and attempting to install puppet governments aligned with its goals—recently offering multimillion-dollar bounties for public figures like Maduro, a brazen display of imperial “extraterritorial justice.” Similarly, in July, Trump hardened restrictions on Cuba, banning “direct or indirect” transactions with entities like GAESA [a business enterprise controlled by Cuba’s military], restricting U.S. tourism, and reaffirming the blockade.

The “war on drugs” has always been a war on the working class and poor, as in Panama in 1989, a country now once again under Trump’s threats to retake control of the canal, turn it back into a U.S. enclave, and reestablish military bases. In imperialist policy, the “fighting drugs” is a tool for militarization and social control—facilitating the dispossession of land and natural resources—while its dead and displaced come from the ranks of the oppressed. It has fueled extreme violence and horrific phenomena like femicide, the crisis of disappearances (including forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions), and the killing of youth.

A consistent anti-imperialist stance cannot place any trust in Sheinbaum’s government, which refuses to call on unions or the general population to mobilize against U.S. threats. Rejecting Washington’s intervention and the pro-imperialist Right must go hand in hand with rejecting the domestic militarization imposed by the Mexican state—whether on its own initiative or under outside pressure.

The real defense of national sovereignty will not come from those who bargain with the executioner but from the independent mobilization of the working class, women, and youth—led by workers’ and popular organizations with a policy independent from both the government and the right. Groups like the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) must demand:

U.S. hands off Mexico and Latin America!

Down with Trump’s secret orders and interventionist threats!

No to militarization—bring the army back to the barracks!

End subordination to Washington on security and migration!

Legalize all drugs to remove the pretext for intervention and take the business away from organized crime!

Redirect the military and National Guard budget to health, education, public housing, and culture!

Against the false choice between Trump’s open intervention and Sheinbaum’s negotiated subordination, we must build a third alternative: that of the exploited and oppressed, mobilizing to end subordination to U.S. imperialism, to reject Trump’s interventionist plans, and to unite with the multiethnic U.S. working class and poor north of the Rio Grande—on the road to a workers’ and people’s government, and a Federation of Socialist Republics of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Originally published in Spanish on August 13 in La Izquierda Diario