The chain of events unleashed by the arrest of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada by the United States government has led to a crisis in the face of the White House’s patent distrust of the agonizing López Obrador government. The problem has also exploded in the hands of the imminent president Claudia Sheinbaum and Omar García Harfuch, her next federal Secretary of Security.
The immediate scenario is that the US administration, whoever leads it after the November election, will demand from Sheinbaum and her team solid evidence of greater commitment to controlling criminal mafias, a growing danger to national security in both nations.
This commitment should include submitting sensitive appointments in the next government to the approval of the justice and intelligence departments of the neighboring nation, including the yet-to-be-appointed Secretaries of Defense, the Navy and the team of García Harfuch’s main collaborators.
As for the diplomatic front, sources from the Mexican Foreign Ministry revealed to this space that the ambassador in Washington, Esteban Moctezuma, has already received urgent orders to send back to Mexico a dozen officials that he promoted in key areas of the legation. Contrary to what was expected, the return of the official himself could occur before the November election. The arrival of a new team of operators seems imminent, under the leadership of a previously unknown leader. Whoever it is, guarantees of having privileged access to Dr. Sheinbaum will be required to have a reliable and effective channel between the White House and the Palace.
It must be assumed that, as in all complex stages of the binational agenda, the next head of the embassy will not remain subordinate to the new Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Juan Ramón de la Fuente.
All this should be considered just a first effect of the cursed inheritance of the López Obrador government, who seemed to persist in sending messages of understanding with the so-called Sinaloa Cartel, in the hands of Zambada García, especially after the imprisonment in the United States of Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán. The interpretation of security and intelligence experts has been that the kidnapping of “El Mayo” and the virtual release of Ovidio Guzmán, heir to the family clan, blew up the dialogue that the AMLO government had held with the legendary mobster and will cause a change of game, as defined by Washington.
This crisis will impact the plans that Omar García Harfuch has been designing since he took office, under adverse conditions since the possibility of having the National Guard under his control slipped from his hands, before President López Obrador himself and the outgoing Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, toughened their stance so that through a constitutional change, in process, that corporation would be forced to be included in the armed forces as one more body, along with the Army, Navy and Air Force.
On the 7th, García Harfuch met for the first time during his six-year term with a López Obrador who sought to stop his arrival to the Sheinbaum team in Mexico City and vetoed him as a candidate for the head of government, but could not prevent his appointment as the next head of Security. That meeting was hardly a cordial one.
As the imminent head of federal security, García Harfuch will have to re-examine what was considered an imminent decision to call on his top operators in the nation’s capital to work with him, to entrust them with areas as sensitive as the intelligence center.
Everything is up in the air. Everything will be more complicated. Change of game, new deck.