As all eyes remain on the U.S. war in Iran, another international development may throw a wrench into one of America’s most valuable foreign relationships.

On April 29, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed indictments against 10 current and former Mexican politicians and officials charging them with colluding with the very drug cartels they’re supposed to be combating. One of the men, Rubén Rocha Moya, is the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa infamous for the drug-infused violence that many Americans associate with Mexico. The allegations against Moya are especially damning. According to the document, the senior Mexican politician met frequently with the children of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as “El Chapo,” when he was running for governor in 2021 and came to an arrangement: In exchange for the Sinaloa Cartel stealing votes on his behalf and cowing the political opposition into silence, Moya would essentially allow the cartel to operate with impunity.

Of course, Mexican officialdom working with criminals is not exactly a new phenomenon. Before Mexico turned into a multiparty democracy at the turn of the century, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominated the country’s politics for seven decades, struck deals with Mexican cartels to keep the peace and ensure that criminal organizations weren’t fighting each other for turf. Turning a blind eye in exchange for bribes was the cost of doing business. And it still is; the poster child for such corruption is Genaro García Luna, who during his stint as Mexico’s top law enforcement official got rich collaborating with the same cartels he was responsible for eradicating. García Luna was arrested and sent to the United States for trial, where he was sentenced to nearly 40 years.

However, the difference this time is that the U.S.-Mexico relationship, particularly on counternarcotics issues, is better than many analysts would have expected during the Trump administration. President Donald Trump gets along fairly well with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, which may come as a shock given Trump’s propensity to threaten unilateral U.S. military action on Mexican soil. Cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico, especially when it comes to nabbing high-profile cartel kingpins, has for the most part been seamless. Consider the takedown in February of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, otherwise known as El Mencho, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Mexico’s biggest criminal organization. El Mencho’s death was supported by U.S. surveillance assets, which provided Mexican forces with the precise information they needed to flush him out. The capture of Audias Flores Silva, one of El Mencho’s lieutenants, on April 27 was another case of Washington and Mexico City coming together in pursuit of a common objective.

The Trump administration’s decision to charge Moya, though, has the potential to bring this cooperation to a slower ebb. Even if the allegations outlined by the Justice Department are true, the publicity surrounding the indictment will complicate how the Sheinbaum administration navigates the case. For a president whose approval ratings are starting to come back down to earth with the Mexican economy shrinking, a controversial case affecting the Mexican political system is the last thing Sheinbaum needs.

Ever since Trump ascended to the presidency for a second time, Sheinbaum has been quite clever in handling him. Unlike predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum isn’t outwardly bombastic, isn’t known to shoot rhetorical arrows and has been characterized more as a pragmatist than a dyed-in-the-wool Morena party ideologue. Although she cares about Mexican sovereignty like all of her predecessors, she also realizes that she can’t eschew all offers of cooperation from the Americans or ignore the demands of a man like Trump, who is known to allow personal grievances to affect how he approaches a country.

Sheinbaum has navigated those turbulent waters brilliantly thus far. On the one hand, she has proved far more eager in taking advantage of the intelligence Washington gives her — so much so that she permitted the CIA to beef up aerial surveillance flights over areas such as Sinaloa. She was responsive early on to Trump’s obsessions with illegal immigration, dispatching 10,000 Mexican troops closer to the U.S.-Mexico border to deter illegal crossings. Not to be outdone, Sheinbaum also allowed the transfer of more than 90 Mexican narcotraffickers to the United States for prosecution on national security grounds, a decision some Mexican commentators have claimed was outside the bounds of Mexican law.

Yet the problem with Trump is that satiating his cravings only grows his appetite. For the Trump administration, extraditing kingpins, acting on U.S. intelligence and stanching the flow of fentanyl into the United States are things that previous Mexican governments should already have been doing. Viewed in this light, Sheinbaum’s actions shouldn’t be celebrated, only accelerated and expanded. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has consistently pressed Mexican officials to go after politicians in league with drug trafficking organizations. Last week’s action by Washington is therefore a shot across the bow. The message to Mexico: Do better and do it faster. Or face the consequences.

Sheinbaum may not admit it during her daily morning press conferences, but the Trump administration has manufactured one of her trickiest tasks to date. She can acquiesce to Trump’s orders to the detriment of party unity, resulting in more complaints from the left-wing base of the Morena movement, which is highly skeptical of Washington in general. Or she can try to slow-roll the affair by announcing her own investigation into Moya, one of her political allies, hoping this keeps the party onside and mollifies Trump just enough to buy time. Either one holds costs. And the U.S.-Mexico relationship will suffer blemishes in the process.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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