A Drug Cartel Sets Mexico on Fire to Send a Message

Ruben Navarrette
Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:49:15 -0800
Opinion

SAN DIEGO — In Mexico, the flames are out. But for our friend and ally, what comes next is still a burning question.

Americans need to pay attention to what's happening south of the border for a few reasons.

First, there's the proximity. If your next-door neighbor's house has termites, it might be a good idea to get your own house checked. That's especially true if the infestation may have come from your side of the property line.
Updated: Tue Feb 24, 2026

SAN DIEGO — In Mexico, the flames are out. But for our friend and ally, what comes next is still a burning question.

Americans need to pay attention to what's happening south of the border for a few reasons.

First, there's the proximity. If your next-door neighbor's house has termites, it might be a good idea to get your own house checked. That's especially true if the infestation may have come from your side of the property line.

Second, there's the marriage. The national interests of the United States and Mexico are intertwined with regard to a host of issues, including immigration, trade and both drug trafficking into the United States and gun smuggling into Mexico.

Third, there's the security. Despite President Donald Trump's best efforts to turn Mexico and Canada into adversaries, the United States is still blessed to have friends on its borders. Americans should want it to stay that way.

In the recent spate of violence, the weapon was fire. Armed men ripped motorists from their cars then set the vehicles ablaze. Gas stations were set on fire and blown up. Shops were firebombed.

In two of the major cities in the state of Jalisco — Guadalajara (the capital) and Puerto Vallarta (a popular coastal resort) — city streets look like a war zone. Burnt vehicles will need to be towed away. Broken glass mixed with ashes is being swept up. Some people are still sheltering in place in homes or hotels. Food shortages are severe.

And, thankfully, the shameful instances of American and Canadian tourists looting Mexican convenience stores — some of which were captured on video and posted on TikTok — don't appear to have been widespread.

Through the flames, the message was conveyed loud and clear. Make that "messages" — plural.

First, there was the message to the people of Mexico and their leaders from the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). Furious over the killing by the Mexican military of their jefe — Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes aka "El Mencho" — members of CJNG wanted the Mexican government to know that nothing has changed. The cartels still call the shots in Mexico, as they have for decades. Forget that, and the Republic will burn.

The millennials who run CJNG apparently follow world events on their smartphones. They likely know that President Claudia Sheinbaum is under pressure from the Trump administration to rein in the cartels so they stop shipping fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana to American consumers of illegal drugs.

We're so far gone in this country that we glamorize television shows like "Breaking Bad" where the protagonist is a drug dealer who cooks methamphetamine. Voters in 24 states plus Washington D.C., passed laws allowing for the recreational use of marijuana. And at nightclubs, vending machines dispense Narcan nasal spray, which can reverse opioid overdoses. We've given up.

And, because Americans don't like taking responsibility for our failures, we're supposed to believe that we're in this hole not because of our society's permissive attitude toward drugs, or the fact that we glorify the drug trade, but because Mexican drug dealers like El Mencho sneak into our teenagers' bedrooms at night and force them to get high. This is all Mexico's fault.

It's no wonder that the second message from the Millennial mobsters in the CJNG was aimed at the Americans, whom they also blame for the death of their boss.

It turns out that El Mencho was killed with the help of U.S. military advisors. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a post on "X" that the United States provided "intelligence support" to the Mexican government.

In Puerto Vallarta, where Americans like to go in the winter to soak up the sun, there were reports that Americans were being detained by the drug thugs. No one was hurt. It's likely the cartel members just wanted to scare the Americans. It worked.

Still, the bad guys aren't dumb. They won't harm U.S. tourists. After all, there's a crazy man in the White House who parks aircraft carriers off coastlines. Trump would like nothing better than to make Mexico his next laboratory for regime change and then pay the bill by raiding the country's rich silver deposits.

The last thing the Mexicans want to see is a plane landing at the Guadalajara Airport, and out pops Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. If that happens, hide the silver.

Once again, Mexico is in a tough spot. It has to control its own gangsters — or else it will have to deal with ours.