As Trump threatens to strike cartels, Mexico’s president says violence is plummeting
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday unveiled new data showing daily homicides have fallen 40% nationwide since she took office; He emphasized this large reduction in part to show the Trump administration that Mexico was making gains in the fight against organized crime.
However, some security analysts stated that the data did not tell the whole story and noted that other indicators of violence, such as kidnappings and enforced disappearances, were also increasing.
An average of 87 murders per day were recorded in September 2024, the month before he took over the presidency, Sheinbaum said in his presentation at the daily press conference. In December 2025, there were 52 murders per day. Homicides have fallen to their lowest level in a decade, he said.
According to the government, there will be 17.5 homicides per 100,000 people in Mexico in 2025. Conversely, there were 29.1 murders per 100,000 people in 2018 and 25.4 murders per 100,000 people in 2024.
According to preliminary data, the United States had a homicide rate of 4 per 100,000 people last year.
Sheinbaum credited a new law enforcement strategy focused on gathering intelligence and improving coordination among the various agencies working on public safety.
He praised this strategy and the huge increase in arrests and drug seizures as evidence that the country is serious about cracking down on criminal groups that control the drug market and other industries, including the agricultural sector.
For months, Sheinbaum has tried to fend off threats of U.S. military intervention in Mexico from President Trump, who says Mexico is “run by the cartels” and that Sheinbaum is not doing enough to confront the cartels.
Fears of US intervention in Mexico have grown since US special forces launched a surprise attack on Venezuela and captured president Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump has repeatedly accused of drug trafficking.
But while Sheinbaum’s supporters celebrated the new data, security experts warned against placing too much emphasis on murder statistics.
Armando Vargas, a security expert at the policy think tank Mexico Evalúa, noted that enforced disappearances and femicides (the killing of women because of their gender) are on the rise. The percentage of Mexicans who say they feel unsafe also increased. according to many surveys.
Saying that authorities need to take into account a series of data that he calls “deadly crimes” to accurately measure violence, Vargas said, “It is impossible to say that the country has calmed down.”
While fentanyl seizures have fallen at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, cocaine seizures have increased. Cartel-related violence continues to make headlines here, especially in northern Mexico, where some factions of the Sinaloa cartel are fighting for supremacy, and in western Michoacan state, where the Cartel de Jalisco New Generation is fighting smaller criminal groups for control of drug trafficking routes and control of avocados and lemons. industries.
Last year, thousands of Mexicans took to the streets to demand an end to the violence following the brazenly public killing of Michoacán’s mayor, Carlos Manzo, who had called on Sheinbaum and other authorities to get tougher on criminal groups. Sheinbaum responded to his killing by sending troops into the state and announcing a new plan to combat violence there.
