Report Says Mexico Cartel Crackdown Has Not Slowed Fentanyl Flow To U.S.

An International Crisis Group report said Mexico’s military campaign in Sinaloa has produced arrests, seizures and lab raids but has not meaningfully disrupted fentanyl availability in the United States.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

Mexico’s military offensive against drug cartels in Sinaloa has failed to significantly reduce the flow of fentanyl into the United States despite thousands of arrests, troop deployments and the destruction of clandestine drug labs, according to a new report detailed by The Epoch Times.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a July 7 report that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has achieved tactical victories against criminal organizations while under pressure from the Trump administration. But the report found those actions have not substantially reduced fentanyl availability in the United States or weakened the criminal networks behind the drug trade.

The findings come as President Donald Trump has intensified his campaign against Mexican drug cartels by designating them as foreign terrorist organizations, expanding military operations targeting narcotics trafficking and imposing sanctions on cartel leaders and financial networks.

The report said Sheinbaum has attempted to respond to U.S. demands for stronger cartel enforcement while rejecting Trump’s repeated suggestions that the U.S. military should strike cartel targets inside Mexico.

Mexico has sent thousands of troops to the U.S. border, extradited nearly 100 alleged and convicted traffickers to the United States, and killed or captured several cartel leaders. Much of the operation has focused on Sinaloa, the home base of the Sinaloa Cartel and Mexico’s main fentanyl production hub.

According to the report, Mexican military and federal security forces have destroyed numerous clandestine drug laboratories in Sinaloa, arrested nearly 2,500 suspects and seized more than 68 tons of narcotics. As many as 15,000 troops have been deployed to the state at different stages of the crackdown.

The military campaign has helped reduce the worst urban violence tied to an internal war between rival Sinaloa Cartel factions. But the report said the conflict has shifted into rural areas and that “the drug trade continues to thrive.”

“Neither criminal turf wars nor the government crackdown seems to have made a dent in the fentanyl supply, demonstrating once again the drug market’s extraordinary ability to withstand violent disruption,” the report states.

U.S. officials told International Crisis Group researchers that the cartel conflict has had no noticeable effect on fentanyl prices or availability in major U.S. cities. Those officials said they continue to believe most Mexican fentanyl production comes from Sinaloa.

Researchers also found no meaningful change in fentanyl prices in border communities, suggesting trafficking networks have adapted to the Mexican government’s offensive.

The report said the fentanyl market’s resilience may reflect other criminal groups filling production gaps, manufacturing moving to other parts of Mexico or smugglers changing trafficking techniques to keep drugs moving north.

The findings underscore the challenge facing the Trump administration as it seeks to dismantle cartel operations, which it has identified as a top national security priority.

Trump has pressed Sheinbaum to take stronger action against cartels and said last year that he would consider military strikes inside Mexico to stop drug trafficking.

“Would I launch strikes into Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Nov. 17, 2025, comparing the idea to military operations against narcotics traffickers in the Caribbean.

Sheinbaum rejected U.S. military action on Mexican soil, but the International Crisis Group report said her government has tried to cooperate with Washington through other measures.

“All the while maintaining that Mexico’s sovereignty is inviolable, Sheinbaum’s government has scrambled to appease the Trump administration,” the report states.

“It has deployed thousands of troops to the U.S. border, transferred close to a hundred alleged and convicted drug traffickers into U.S. custody, and killed several criminal kingpins.”

On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the designation of major cartels as terrorist organizations. The administration later declared cartel members to be “unlawful combatants” and described the campaign against them as a non-international armed conflict.

“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks,” the White House said in an October 2025 report to Congress.

The administration later expanded the use of U.S. military assets to target maritime drug trafficking routes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

In late June, the U.S. military said it struck a vessel believed to be transporting narcotics toward the United States, killing two people aboard. The strike brought the reported death toll from the campaign against suspected narcotics traffickers since early September 2025 to 213.

The operations have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and some legal experts who have questioned the legal basis for using military force against suspected traffickers outside traditional armed conflicts.

The Trump administration has also increased financial pressure on the Sinaloa Cartel. In May, the Treasury Department sanctioned more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the cartel’s fentanyl trafficking operations.

Treasury said the Sinaloa Cartel remains one of the world’s largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl into the United States.

“As President Trump has made clear, this Administration will not allow narco-terrorists to flood our borders with poison,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said when announcing the sanctions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has also reported large narcotics seizures under the administration’s tougher border enforcement strategy.

CBP told The Epoch Times in May that its Office of Field Operations had seized more than 100 million lethal doses of fentanyl that month, along with record quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine in fiscal year 2026.

Despite those enforcement measures, the International Crisis Group report concluded that fentanyl trafficking networks have continued to adapt. The report said Mexico’s crackdown has produced visible arrests and seizures but has not yet delivered the larger strategic outcome sought by Washington: a meaningful disruption of fentanyl supply reaching the United States.