Mexico makes largest fentanyl bust as Donald Trump’s tariff threat looms

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Mexico said it had made the country’s largest seizure of fentanyl as it seeks to ward off US president-elect Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs on its exports.

A navy-led operation seized more than one tonne of fentanyl pills, detained two men and confiscated multiple firearms, according to security minister Omar García Harfuch.

The bust took place in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, which has been gripped by open warfare between factions of its notorious drug cartel since the alleged kidnapping, removal to the US and arrest of the cartel’s leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in June.

Weeks after he won the US election in November, Trump posted on social media that Canada and Mexico could both face 25 per cent tariffs on all their exports once he takes office until they stopped migrants and drugs from reaching the US.

García Harfuch, the former Mexico City police chief in charge of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s security strategy, said after the bust that “these actions will continue until the violence reduces in the state of Sinaloa”.

Sinaloa is home to one of Mexico’s most powerful trafficking groups, the Sinaloa Cartel. A fracture between its leaders springing from Zambada’s capture has led to a jump in homicides. The usually lively state capital of Culiacán now shuts down in the evening, with schools intermittently closed, and few people out in the streets.

Mexico’s security experts have said that drug busts and arrests alone do not automatically reduce the violence that residents experience, and can sometimes worsen the bloodshed without a comprehensive strategy.

The number of migrants reaching the southern border of the US, another key issue for Trump, has fallen this year, with arrivals at the border now far below their peaks.

The deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is often made in laboratories in Mexico using precursor substances from China, is now the leading cause of death for young people in the US.

Authorities face an almost impossible task in using inspections to stop the extremely potent pills and powder from crossing the border, because the volumes are so small, experts said.

Sheinbaum initially took a tough approach to Trump’s threat, but soon spoke to the US president-elect on the phone to discuss migration and security co-operation.