Following a meeting in Mexico City, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also expressed their commitment to a shared partnership with the US.

“We complement the United States, we make them stronger, and we are all stronger together,” Carney told reporters.

Both Canada and Mexico have been hit by US tariffs – 50% on Canadian steel, and 25% on some Mexican pharmaceuticals. President Trump has also levied a 25% “fentanyl tariff” on Mexico, citing border security.

This is Carney’s first official visit to Mexico as prime minister, and it marks an effort to reset relations after tensions flared last year when Canadian officials were accused of seeking a separate trade deal with the US during tariff talks.

At the time, Sheinbaum’s response was that “Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners”, and that Canada “could only wish they had the cultural riches that Mexico has”.

The tone between Carney and Sheinbaum on Thursday appeared much warmer, with the two exchanging gifts and later pleasantries at a joint news conference.

“Our agreement today will expand and deepen the partnership, so that the next 30 years hold even greater promise than the last 30 years have delivered,” Carney said.

Canadian officials told reporters earlier that Canada also aims to boost trade with Mexico. Trade between the two was valued at C$56bn ($40.5bn; £30bn) in 2024.

Carney and Sheinbaum also discussed border security and “transnational organised crime” – an issue Trump has cited to justify tariffs on both countries.

Observers say the renewed co-ordination is expected, as the two “don’t want to be pitted against one another when negotiations start”.

“It’s a subtle dance,” said Sebastián Vallejo Vera, a political scientist at Western University. “Canada and Mexico want to show unity, without appearing to gang up on the US.”

The two leaders find themselves facing the same challenge: a protectionist US president who has redefined global and North American trade by imposing widespread tariffs on most countries.

Those levies have been especially disruptive for Canada and Mexico, whose economies have been largely shaped by the United States-Canada-Mexico (USMCA) free trade agreement – a version of which has been in place since 1994.

The USMCA is up for review in 2026. Early stages of that are already underway, with Washington now soliciting feedback from American businesses on the changes they’d like to see.

Canada and Mexico have both supported the agreement, arguing it has helped boost the competitiveness of the North American market.

The incident happened as the bus, operated by the Herradura de Plata bus company, was making its way into an industrial zone south of the Atlacomulco area, outside the capital Mexico City.

CCTV footage shown by local media appears to show the passenger bus being hit by a train as it attempted to cross a railway line on Monday morning.

The train’s operator Canadian Pacific Kansas City issued a statement expressing its condolences to the victims’ families and warned drivers to respect railroad stop signs to “avoid these tragic situations”.

Both the bus and train company are working with authorities investigating the incident.

Dozens of injured people pulled from the wreckage have been taken to local hospitals.

Images taken at the crash site appear to show parts of the bus’s roof missing, its front windscreen shattered and its rear missing.

The State of Mexico’s attorney general’s office said seven women and three men were killed, while some of the injured were in a severe condition, according to Reuters.

This is not the first fatal bus crash to be reported in Mexico this year.

In May, at least 21 people were killed in a crash involving a bus, tanker truck and a van in central Mexico, according to officials.

In February, at least 41 people died in an accident involving a bus in southern Mexico, the government in the state of Tabasco said.

Canada and Mexico are forecast to see the biggest impact as they have had the harshest tariffs imposed on them, but US growth is also expected to be hit.

The OECD has more than halved its growth outlook for Canada for this year and next, while it expects Mexico to be pushed into a recession.

Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports. The US has also imposed 25% tariffs on other imports from Mexico and Canada – with some exemptions – and a 20% levy on Chinese goods.

In response, Canada and the EU have both announced retaliatory tariffs.

The Paris-based OECD said the higher trade barriers and “increased geopolitical and policy uncertainty” was hitting investment and household spending.

In the OECD’s latest forecast:

• Canada’s economy is predicted to grow by just 0.7% this year and in 2026, compared with the previous forecast of 2% for both years
• Mexico is now forecast to contract by 1.3% this year and shrink a further 0.6% next year, instead of growing by 1.2% and 1.6% as previously expected
• Growth in the US has also been downgraded, with growth of 2.2% expected this year and 1.6% in 2025, down from previous forecasts of 2.4% and 2.1%
• Despite the US imposing tariffs on China, the OECD has increased its growth forecast for the country slightly to 4.8%.

The OECD said the developing trade war was set to push up inflation, which will mean interest rates are likely to remain higher for longer.

“Significant risks remain,” it warned. “Further fragmentation of the global economy is a key concern.

“Higher and broader increases in trade barriers would hit growth around the world and add to inflation”.

The OECD said that for the world economy, growth would slow from 3.2% in 2024 to 3.1% in 2025, largely as a result of the trade tensions.

In a letter to the US trade representative, the firm said US exporters were “exposed to disproportionate impacts” if other countries retaliated to Trump’s tariffs.

The OECD cut its growth forecast for the UK’s economy to 1.4% in 2025, from its previous forecast of 1.7%, and to 1.2% in 2026, down from 1.3%.

However, the forecast is more optimistic than the Bank of England, which earlier this month cut its UK growth forecast for 2025 to 0.75%.

“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum”, he wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “Our relationship has been a very good one and we are working hard, together, on the border.”

The comments were in stark contrast to the kind of language he has used for the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who he continues to refer to as “Governor Trudeau”, while calling Canada “the 51st State”.

The war of words – if not yet trade – continues between Canada and the Trump administration with Prime Minister Trudeau calling the entire tariffs policy “dumb” and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, calling him a “numbskull” in return.

The difference in tone between the US neighbour to the north and the one to the south could hardly be more striking.

Some, particularly in Claudia Sheinbaum’s camp, see it as evidence of her deft handling of an unpredictable leader in the White House, one who has made several bold statements of intent, only for them to be rolled back or watered down.

Certainly, President Sheinbaum has delivered a singular message from the start: Mexicans should “remain calm” over Trump, she has said, insisting that “cooler heads will prevail.”

In that sense, it has been so far, so good for the Mexican leader.

Twice, now, in two months she has managed to stave off the imposition of sweeping 25% tariffs on Mexican goods through a last-minute phone call to President Trump – even though he said there was “no room” for negotiation.

It is testament to her diplomacy that Trump seems to genuinely appreciate her tone, clarity and overall demeanour in their interactions.

She has refused to accept publicly that Mexico hasn’t done enough on either of the main border issues on which Trump is demanding action from his neighbours: fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration north.

She began Thursday’s morning press briefing by referring to new figures from the US Customs and Border Protection agency which show seizures of fentanyl have dropped to 263 kilos, their lowest levels in 3 years. It represents a 75% drop in the last six months of her presidency.

When tariffs were avoided in February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border.

Her administration has also extradited (although they prefer the word “expelled”) 29 drug cartel figures to the US to face trial on charges from murder to money laundering, including a top drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been wanted by the US authorities since the mid-1980s.

Those may well have been the measures Trump was referring to when he said the two countries were “working hard, together” on border security.

Furthermore, she has often thrown the ball back in the US president’s direction.

Where do the guns which arm the cartels come from, she asks rhetorically, openly calling for the US to do more to curb the flow of weapons south and tackle its demand for illegal drugs. The drugs may come from Latin America, she points out, but the market for their consumption is overwhelmingly in the US.

Even when the Trump administration recently designated six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, it seemed to strengthen her hand.

That’s because her administration is currently embroiled in a legal battle with US gun manufacturers over negligence. If US weapons-makers have allowed their products to reach terrorists rather than mere criminals, Mexico could expand its lawsuit, she said, to include a new charge of “complicity” with terror groups.Watch: Trump signs order pausing some Mexico and Canada tariffs

And yet while President Sheinbaum is enjoying a strong start to her presidency – both domestically and in the eyes of the world – for her handling of Trump, it is worth stressing that these are early days in their bilateral relationship.

“I think she has played the hand she has been dealt pretty well”, said Mexican economist, Valeria Moy. “I’m not sure it’s time for celebration just yet. But I think she has done what she can in the face of the threat of tariffs. It makes little sense for either of side to enter into a trade war.”

The key to Sheinbaum’s success seems to have been in refusing to back down on unreasonable requests or matters of real importance, while similarly not appearing subservient or acquiescent to the White House’s demands.

That is not an easy path to tread.

On some questions – the Gulf of Mexico being renamed by Trump as the Gulf of America, for example – she can afford to remain above the fray knowing that most people around the world are unlikely to adopt his preferred terminology.

On others, particularly tariffs, the stakes are considerably higher; there’s a danger that the constant back-and-forth and instability on the issue could push the Mexican economy into recession.

The Mexican peso weakened again during this latest episode and, although Sheinbaum claims the country’s economy is strong, the markets would clearly prefer a more reliable and solid relationship with the US. Mexico remains the US’s biggest trading partner, after all.

When I spoke to President Sheinbaum on the campaign trail last year, shortly before she made history by becoming Mexico’s first woman president, she said she would have no problem working with a second Trump presidency and that she would always “defend” what was right for Mexicans – including the millions who reside in the US.

“We must always defend our country and our sovereignty,” she told me.

With so much bluster between these three neighbours in recent days, it is easy to forget that the Trump presidency is still only six weeks old.

The new relationship with the White House has a long way to go, with the USMCA trade agreement to be renegotiated next year. But certainly, amid all the political theatre, Claudia Sheinbaum will be more pleased than Justin Trudeau with how it has started.

It is the second time in two days that Trump has rolled back his taxes on imports from the US’s two biggest trade partners, measures that have raised uncertainty for businesses and worried financial markets.

On Wednesday, he said he would temporarily spare carmakers from 25% import levies just a day after they came into effect.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum thanked Trump for the move, while Canada’s finance minister said the country would in turn hold off on its threatened second round of retaliatory tariffs on US products.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday morning he had had a “colourful” conversation about tariffs in a phone call with Trump.

The US president used profane language more than once during Wednesday’s heated exchange, according to US and Canadian media reports.

Trudeau told reporters that a trade war between the two allies was likely for the foreseeable future, despite some targeted relief.

“Our goal remains to get these tariffs, all tariffs removed,” he said.

Sheinbaum said she had had an “excellent and respectful” call with Trump, adding that the two countries would work together to stem the flow of the opioid fentanyl from Mexico into the US and curb the trafficking of guns going the other way.

The carveout from the duties applies to goods shipped under North America’s free trade pact, the US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) , which Trump signed during his first term.

Items that currently come into the US under the pact’s rules include televisions, air conditioners, avocados and beef, according to analysis by the firm Trade Partnership Worldwide.

The measures also reduced tariffs on potash – a key ingredient for fertiliser needed by US farmers – from 25% to 10%.

A White House official said about 50% of US imports from Mexico and 62% from Canada may still face tariffs. Those proportions could change as firms change their practices in response to the order.

The White House has also continued to promote its plans for other tariffs, promising action on 2 April, when officials have said they will unveil recommendations for tailored “reciprocal” trade duties on countries around the world.

The trade war tensions have rattled markets and raised fears of economic turbulence.

The S&P 500 share index, which tracks the biggest listed American companies, ended down nearly 1.8% on Thursday.

George Godber, fund manager at Polar Capital, said the “hokey cokey” with Trump’s tariffs has it made it “nigh on impossible” for firms to manage their production lines and is “putting pressure on the US economy”.

Meanwhile, he said it is “galvanising a response from Europe, especially Germany, so we’ve seen a more positive reaction to European markets”.

In signing the orders, Trump dismissedthe suggestion that he was walking back the measures because of concerns about the stock market.

“Nothing to do with the market,” Trump said. “I’m not even looking at the market, because long term, the United States will be very strong with what’s happening.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who leads Canada’s most populous province, said afterwards that “a pause on some tariffs means nothing”.

Earlier, as relief looked likely but before it was announced, he told CNN that the province still planned to go ahead with a 25% tariff on the electricity it provides to 1.5 million homes and businesses in New York, Michigan and Minnesota from Monday.

“Honestly, it really bothers me. We have to do this, but I don’t want to do this,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday dismissed retaliation as counter-productive for trade negotiations.

“If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘Oh we’re going to do this’, then tariffs are probably going to go up,” he said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.

Goods worth billions cross the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico each day and the economies of the three countries are deeply integrated after decades of free trade.

Trump has argued introducing tariffs will protect American industry and boost manufacturing. However, many economists say tariffs could lead to prices rising for consumers in the US, while warning they could trigger severe economic downturns in Mexico and Canada.

About $1bn in trade enters the US from Mexico and Canada each day that does not claim duty-free exemptions under USMCA, since it has historically enjoyed low or no tariffs, said Daniel Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide.

“Whether importers can or will start claiming USMCA remains to be seen, but it’s a huge amount of money at stake,” he said.

In the US, the economy is already starting to show the effects of the disruption from Trump’s policies.

Imports spiked in January on the back of tariff fears, with America’s trade deficit increasing 34% to more than $130bn (£100bn), the Commerce Department reported.

Gregory Brown, who leads BenLee, a company that makes big trailers, said he had had to adjust prices multiple times over the last five weeks as a result of Trump’s policies, which have included an order, set to go into effect later this month, expanding tariffs on steel and aluminium.

But Mr Brown, who attended Mr Bessent’s speech, said that for now, his customers are agreeing to pay the higher prices – a sign that the economy is holding up.

“It’s a great growth economy,” he said, noting that the economy had been strong under Biden too. He said he saw Trump’s decision to quickly offer relief from his new tariffs as a sign of a business-friendly president adjusting to the “business reality”.

The announcement by the White House came even as Trump continued to blast Canada for not doing enough to stop drugs from entering the US.

“Nothing has convinced me that it has stopped,” Trump wrote on social mediaafter a phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the economic disruption caused by new trade tariffs.

News of the relief helped to boost US shares, which closed higherafter two days of declines that had wiped out gains the S&P 500 had seen since the presidential election in November.

The tariff exemption is for cars made in North America that comply with the continent’s existing free trade agreement.

That deal, which was negotiated by Trump during his first term, sets out rules for how much of a car must be made in each country to qualify for duty-free treatment.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had backed a one-month exemption to the tariffs for the car industry after pleas from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which have supply chains that stretch across North America.

The new tariffs – which are a tax applied as goods enter the country – were poised to disrupt a third of car production in North America within a week, according to analysts at S&P Global Mobility.

Shares in Ford were up by more than 5% after the announcement, while General Motors shares rose more than 7%.Stellantis shares in the US rose more than 9%.

“The president is open to hearing about additional exemptions,” Ms Leavitt added. “He always has open dialogue and he’ll always do what he believes is right for the American people.”

Ford said in a statement the company will continue to have a “healthy and candid dialogue with the administration” and touted its investment of billions in the United States.

Goods worth billions cross the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico each day and their economies are deeply integrated.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce warned that affordability would be hurt and business relationships would suffer, despite the chances for targeted relief.

“We’ve seen this movie before. President Trump puts tariffs in place and then doles out exemptions one at a time,” said Matthew Holmes, the organisation’s chief of public policy. “That is not how a long-lasting trade alliance is built.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Canadian media that the one-month reprieve for automakers would not alter his plans for retaliation, which have already included a halt to sales of US liquor in the province.

Trump’s moves, and his threats to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on countries around the world, have raised fears of a wider trade war.

As well as Mexico and Canada, he hit goods from China with an additional tariff on Tuesday, raising levies to at least 20% and prompting the country to retaliate against US exports, including agricultural products.

Canada also responded with its own retaliatory import levies on US goods after Washington’s 25% tariffs on its two neighbours came into effect on Tuesday, affecting items including peanut butter, oranges and wine.

Mexico also said it would respond, including with its own tariffs.

“I don’t know where we go with this and how it ends. I just hope that it ends quickly,” said Iowa farmer Bob Hemesath, the board president for lobby group Farmers for Free Trade, which has raised concerns about the tariffs.

Big retailers in the US have already warned the measures will lead to higher prices on goods such as avocados within days, while economists are forecasting economic recessions in Mexico and Canada triggered by the tariffs.

Trump has acknowledged his moves may lead to short-term economic pain in the US, but said he wants to protect US industry and boost manufacturing.

He has cast the tariffs this week against goods from America’s two neighbours, as well as China, as a response to the flow of migrants and fentanyl across the border.

Writing on social media on Wednesday, Trump said he had told Trudeau that the situation was not improving.

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough’,” Trump said.

Trudeau has called called Trump’s claims about drugs a “completely bogus” justification for tariffs on his country.

White House officials have said Trump still intends to move ahead on 2 April with plans for reciprocal tariffs on other countries around the world that he sees as treating the US unfairly.

“There are going to be tariffs – let’s be clear – but what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that maybe he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg on Wednesday.

In the long-running lawsuit, Mexico’s government argues that the “flood” of illegal guns across the border is a result of “deliberate” practices by US firms.

The gun industry’s trade association has denied any wrongdoing and blamed Mexico’s government for failing to control crime.

The flow of guns from the US to Mexico has recently emerged as a bargaining chip in talks over the implementation of tariffs on Mexican goods entering the US.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, liberal and conservative justices alike expressed scepticism about Mexico’s claims that US guns contribute to criminal networks.

“What you don’t have is particular dealers, right?” liberal Justice Elena Kagan told the lawyer representing Mexico. “Who are they aiding and abetting in this complaint?”

The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2021 in a federal courthouse in Massachusetts – where several of the companies are based – argued that the manufacturers knew that guns were being sold to traffickers fuelling violence in the country.

It has since become the focus of years of legal wrangling and appeals.

According to Mexican authorities, tens of thousands of US-manufactured guns are trafficking south across the border each year and into the hands of drug cartels, which use them to fight each other and the Mexican government alike.

Some estimates put the total at over half a million weapons each year.

The gun manufacturers, along with support groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), have argued that they are legally protected and that a lawsuit would undermine gun rights for Americans.

“Mexico has extinguished its constitutional arms rights and now seeks to extinguish America’s,” the NRA wrote in a legal brief filed to the Supreme Court. “To that end, Mexico aims to destroy the American firearms industry financially.”

At the heart of the gun manufacturers case is a federal law known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA.

The law, enacted in 2005, is designed to protect gun companies from being held liable for the misuse of their weapons by criminals. The Supreme Court case marks the first time the highest court in the US will consider the law.

In court on Tuesday, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she thought it was likely the PLCAA means that “we don’t want the courts to be the ones to be crafting remedies that amount to regulation on this industry”.

The Mexican lawsuit also suggests that some weapons are being manufactured and decorated specifically to the tastes of cartel members – such as a gold-plated gold pistol known as the “Super El Jefe”, Spanish for “the boss”.

“Those are all things that are not illegal in any way,” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh said of the argument. “There are some people who want the experience of shooting a particular type of gun because they find it more enjoyable than using a BB gun.”

Kavanaugh also expressed concerns that penalising companies for the misuse of their products could ultimately impact other industries, such as pharmaceuticals.

The issue of US weapons in Mexico recently emerged as part of last-minute diplomatic manoeuvring over US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico.

As part of a last-minute deal to avoid the tariffs coming into effect on 3 February, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the US had agreed to increase measures to prevent the trafficking of high-powered US weapons into Mexico.

On 14 February, however, Sheinbaum warned that the lawsuit against manufacturers could be expanded if the US designated Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organisations – a move the administration took just days later.

Trump’s tariffs on goods from Mexico – and from Canada and China – ultimately came into effect on 4 March.

At least 25,000 people were murdered last year in Mexico, which has extremely restrictive gun laws. The country is home to only one gun shop, housed in a Mexico City military complex.

Statistics from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) show that between 2017 and 2022, nearly half of all weapons recovered from crime scenes in Mexico were manufactured in the US.

Those extradited include notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero who has been wanted by the US for the murder of an American agent 40 years ago.

The move – considered to be of the biggest extraditions in Mexico’s history – is seen as a major step in bilateral security relations between the two countries.

It comes after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico earlier this year, accusing it of failing to tackle drug trafficking and mass migration.

“As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Thursday night.

“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honour of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers – and in some cases, given their lives – to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels,” she added.

Caro Quintero is one of the founding members of the Guadalajara Cartel and a linchpin in the creation of modern Mexican drug-trafficking.

He was wanted in the US in connection with the torture and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena, in 1985.

Caro Quintero was arrested at the time and spent 28 years in prison in Mexico before being released in 2013 – much to the anger of the Americans.

But in 2022, aged in his 70s, he was recaptured by the Mexican Navy after a dog found him hiding in bushes.

Reacting to Caro Quintero’s extradition DEA Acting Administrator Derek Maltz hailed the move as a “victory for the Camarena family”.

He added: “Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable.

“No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you.”

Quintero is expected to appear in court in New York on Friday.

Other fugitives extradited include the founders of the brutal Zetas Cartel – Miguel Angel Treviño and his brother Omar Treviño.

Known as Z-40 and Z-42 respectively, the two men ran the feared organisation for years before its eventual demise in the mid 2010s.

Miguel Treviño, who was arrested by Mexican marines in July 2013, was wanted on both sides of the border for ordering massacres and running drugs on a global scale.

Omar Treviño – who was wanted in the US and Mexico on charges of drug trafficking, kidnap and murder – was captured by security forces in Monterrey in March 2015.

Their criminal empire spanned a wide range of illicit activities including cocaine-smuggling, people trafficking, extortion, gun-running and kidnappings.

Police in Webb County, Texas, confirmed the brother’s extradition and warned Americans from crossing into Mexico for fear of reprisals.

Among the other prominent figures included in the extradition are former Juarez Cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Andrew Clark, a Canadian citizen accused by US authorities of being part of a massive US and Canada drug smuggling ring that was allegedly run by former Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding.

According to the justice department, six of the 29 detainees could be subject to the federal death penalty, which the Trump administration restored on the first day of his administration.

The agreement marks a significant departure for the Mexican government, which has historically resisted extraditing its citizens if they might face capital punishment.

José Ángel Canobbio, also known as “El Güerito” (little blond one), is accused of being the right hand man of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, one of the sons of infamous jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Mexican security forces say the arrest of Canobbio, who they say was in charge of security for Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, is a severe blow to the Sinaloa cartel.

He was captured just hours after the United States added the Sinaloa cartel to its list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs), a move which the Trump Administration says will allow it to better combat the criminal groups.

As well as the Sinaloa cartel, the US state department designated seven other Latin American crime groups as FTOs. They are:

• Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG)
• Gulf cartel
• Northeast cartel
• United cartel
• New Michoacán Family
• Tren de Aragua
• MS-13

All but the last two groups are based in Mexico and the Mexican government has come under huge pressure by the Trump Administration to step up its fight against them and the trafficking of the synthetic drug fentanyl they engage in.

Read more about how fentanyl gets into the US

Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum managed to convince her US counterpart to hold off imposing a 25% duty on Mexican imports to the US for a month.

Mexican security forces will hope that the arrest of Canobbio – who was indicted in absentia by a federal grand jury in Chicago in November for allegedly smuggling fentanyl into the US – will go some way towards showing their commitment to the fight against drug trafficking.

The indictment accuses Canobbio of being the principal advisor, lieutenant and security chief for Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who took over the running of the Sinaloa cartel after their father was jailed.

According to security expert David Saucedo, Canobbio has played a key role in getting the Sinaloa cartel involved in the smuggling of fentanyl to the US.

Mr Saucedo told Mexico’s Radio Formula, that he expected him to be quickly extradited to the US.

The pilot, known by the alias of “El Jando”, was detained in the northern city of Culiacán, the stronghold of Los Chapitos, in an operation in which one soldier was shot dead.

Mexican intelligence sources allege he is a key figure in Los Chapitos and that he played a role in the sting operation which led to the arrest of another cartel kingpin “El Mayo Zambada” in the US.

The pilot’s lawyers have asked the courts for more time to prepare his defence.

While “El Jando” was detained in the early hours of Saturday, detailed information about the charges levelled against him have only become public in recent days.

Mexico’s security minister told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday that he could confirm “El Jando” was the trusted pilot of the leader of “Los Chapitos”.

Prosecutors allege that as well as being an accomplished pilot, he was also involved in drug and arms trafficking and in several explosive attacks on the security forces.

Most importantly though, Mexican intelligence services are now hoping to gain information from “El Jando” about the mysterious flight which delivered wanted drug kingpin “El Mayo” into the hands of US federal agents.

US officials have said that “El Mayo” was betrayed by none other than Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of the infamous “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The officials allege that Guzmán López tricked the 75-year-old “El Mayo” – who had been a close ally of his father – into boarding a plane with him which then crossed the border into the US.

Photos released by US law enforcement showed the two men being arrested at a private airport near El Paso, Texas, by US agents who had clearly been waiting for them on the airport’s tarmac for their arrival.

Those loyal to “El Mayo” think that Joaquín Guzmán López delivered the cartel leader, who had evaded capture for three decades, to the US as part of a deal to negotiate a lesser sentence for himself.

The lawyer for “El Mayo” denied that his client had been “duped”, but said that he had been forced onto the plane by Joaquín Guzmán López.

“He was ambushed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed … he was then thrown into the back of a pickup truck and taken to a landing strip; there, he was forced onto a plane, his legs tied to the seat by Joaquín, and brought to the US against his will,” the lawyer told the LA Times newspaper.

The lawyer also said that the only people on board the plane had been “the pilot, Joaquín and my client”.

While it is not yet clear whether “El Jando” – the pilot arrested this weekend – was the one who flew the plane or whether he helped to plan the operation, Mexican prosecutors appeared confident he could provide them with information about the flight which ended in the arrest of both Guzmán López and “El Mayo”.

“El Mayo” has since pleaded not guilty in a US court to a long list of drug-related charges while lawyers for Joaquín Guzmán López have said that their client is in plea negotiations.

The alleged betrayal of “El Mayo” by Guzmán López has led to a split in their cartel with followers of the former, known as “Los Mayos” or “La Mayiza”, attacking those loyal to the latter.