Will Sheinbaum Hand Rocha To The Gringos?
The Sinaloa indictment poses the biggest challenge yet in her presidency
As with many politicians, there is gap between what Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says and what she does, especially when it comes to the relationship with the United States. In her morning press briefings, which speak to the news-reading Mexican public and base of her Morena party, she takes a nationalist line, championing Mexican sovereignty against the interventionist colossus north of the Rio Grande.
“We are not a protectorate of the United States. We are not a colony of the United States,” Sheinbaum, the 63-year old former scientist, said Monday.
However, in actions, Sheinbaum has delivered to President Donald Trump on several key demands since he returned to office last year. Her government helped halt the flow of undocumented migrants though Mexico to the U.S. border, slashing Border Patrol encounters to the lowest in decades (this is also due to Trump largely killing asylum at the border). She has whacked fentanyl trafficking, so U.S. border seizures of the venomous drug were down 72 percent last month compared to when she took office in October 2024. And her government trampled on extradition procedures to transfer 92 alleged top cartel operators into U.S. custody, including Rafael Caro Quintero, who the DEA has wanted since 1985.
Will this cooperation, however, extend to extraditing Rubén Rocha, the Morena member and governor of Sinaloa (until the weekend), to New York, where he is accused of working with the Chapitos to traffic fentanyl, heroin, meth and cocaine? Rocha’s indictment, which was unveiled Wednesday, poses the biggest challenge in her presidency so far, putting her in a tough position to keep on good terms with both Trump and the cupola of Morena.
Among the brass of Morena, the leftist nationalist party founded by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, there is…
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