Donald Trump: An Unexpected Benefactor

The Republican president explained that, although the tariffs were initially scheduled for April 1, he decided to delay them one day because it was April Fools’ Day in the United States.

The dominant narrative was that no drugs were produced in Mexico, that there was only an occasional clandestine laboratory located in a hidden place — perhaps in a tangle of mangroves almost impossible to enter without a guide willing to risk his life to show the way.

After Donald Trump’s return to the White House and before the tariff soap opera began, take note of this: 200 laboratories were discovered. True, some were set up in mountainous areas, but others were operating in urban areas in plain sight.

A couple of reporters from The New York Times stumbled upon a lab and took pictures of the kitchen and the cook. It was a national embarrassment for reporters to find the lab when federal forces couldn’t. It was simply a matter of asking around.

If Trump hadn’t struck us, those labs would still be there, securely producing drugs — with cover from local police, of course, while the prevailing public opinion would continue to be that labs were incredibly difficult to find.

More than 50 high-priority targets have also been taken down, some of whom — like El Güerito — are already in U.S. prisons. More than 50 bosses out of the game is enough to weaken any criminal gang, even one the size of the Sinaloa Cartel with its two factions.

How many would have continued to operate if not for pressure from the new U.S. administration? The answer: almost all of them.

Pressure from federal forces, as well as more than 1,000 deaths — from the drug war between southern Mexico’s “Mayiza” and northern Mexico’s “Chapitos,” a gang within the Sinaloa Cartel — have resulted in the lowest point in its history for the world’s most powerful criminal cartel.

As a result of a stealthy, efficient and professional operation, the Mexican government sent 29 high-profile drug traffickers to the U.S., including some of the most important drug traffickers in the country at the time, among them, Rafael Caro Quintero and leaders of the Zetas gang.

More than 3,000 operatives, 342 vehicles and 20 aircraft were involved because the drug traffickers were held in prisons in different places. Believe it or not, there were no leaks. All the envoys have chilling accounts.

One story is that the Treviño Morales brothers were still commanding their criminal group from prison, the sort of thing that can only happen in Mexico. If Trump had lost the election, those 29 high-profile drug traffickers would still be in Mexican prisons, with several about to be released, thanks to, let’s say, “accommodating” judges eager to find procedural errors to send them back to the streets — with a few bribes here and there.

In the remaining days of March, we will surely hear about the achievements of the Security Cabinet. Of course, I don’t begrudge them recognition, but the question remains: What would things be like without Trump?

So, now we are facing off with that unlikely benefactor, a man who, with one decision, can derail the country’s economy and sow chaos not only here, but also in the United States. Trump is not only dangerous for Mexico, but also for all of North America and for the entire planet.

Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum enjoyed a high level of approval before the change of administration in the U.S. Today her level of approval is in the stratosphere, thanks to her ability to outsmart Trump, and that is an unexpected blessing, a political one this time.

For he is a hyperactive president, firing bursts of executive orders, shooting right and left, responding without aiming to anything that moves.