The Geopolitics of Cartels in Mexico

 

Feb 27, 2026 The video above argues that the growth of powerful cartels in Mexico is the result of Geopolitical Conflict between China and the US. Recently, EL Mencho a Mexican Drug Kingpin, was murdered by Mexican authorities with intelligence help from the US. The cartels have taken to the streets in a wave of violence that is just now subsiding.

In this post, a look specifically at how Geopolitical Linkages with China would (or would not) benefit Mexico. Short answer: Geopolitical Linkage with China is the worst possible future for Mexico.

The graphic above shows three alternative futures for growth of the Mexican Economy (MX1) from the MXL20 model. The best future is Business-as-Usual (BAU) that is, no Geopolitical Linkages. The worst future, by far, is Geopolitical Linkage with China (CN) which leads to growth collapse. Continued entrenchment of Cartels in addition to other Chinese Economic Exploitation would damage the country well past the distant future in 2100. 

Since it does not seem that either the US or China will leave Mexico alone to find it's own future (BAU), a reasonable strategy or the Medium-term would be a Random Walk (RW), that is, responding randomly to alternating pressure from the US and Chia. The execution of El Mencho may well be one such random response.

Notes

For more information of Mexico, see the Blog Roll here. For information on data sources and how the state space models were constructed, see the Boiler Plate. Code for the MXL20 Model can be run here.