Mexico extradites drug cartel members amid Trump tariff menace

Soldiers escort a man who authorities identified as Omar Trevino Morales, alias “Z-42,” leader of the Zetas drug cartel, as he is moved from a military plane to a military vehicle at the Attorney General’s Office hangar in Mexico City, March 4, 2015.

Eduardo Verdugo | AP

Mexico extradited 29 drug cartel members to the United States amid a looming promise by President Donald Trump to impose stiff tariffs on Mexican imports.

The people extradited Thursday included Rafael Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who is charged in the U.S. with the 1985 slaying of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.

“The group of cartel members … includes one of the most evil cartel bosses in the world,” the White House said in a statement.

In the same statement, the White House said Trump had “directed the Department of Justice and the Department of State to make this happen, and Attorney General [Pam] Bondi and Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio did a tremendous job in getting this done.”

The DEA’s former chief of operations, Ray Donovan, said, “For those of us who have investigated Mexican cartels for many generations, this is truly an historical moment.”

“We have never seen this many sent from Mexico to the U.S. in one day,” Donovan said, according to NBC News.

The extraditions came on the heels of promises by Trump to impose tariffs of 25% on goods imported from Mexico and Canada if those countries do not take steps to halt the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl and other narcotics across their borders with the U.S.

Those tariffs were suspended until next week after Mexico and Canada both took steps to address Trump’s concerns.

But questions remain whether Trump will follow through on his promise to impose the tariffs, and both Mexico and Canada are trying to convince the Trump administration not to do so.

The extraditions occurred on the same day that Rubio, Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met in Washington, D.C., with a delegation of high-level Mexico security officials, including Foreign Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente.

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The Department of Justice said the other cartel leaders and managers extradited by Mexico face charges in the U.S. that include murder, money laundering, racketeering and drug trafficking.

The people extradited are members of cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and Cártel de Golfo, the DOJ said in a statement.

“These defendants are collectively alleged to have been responsible for the importation into the United States of massive quantities of poison, including cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin, as well as associated acts of violence,” the DOJ statement said.

A State Department spokesperson, in a statement about Rubio’s meeting Thursday with Mexican officials, said, “Secretary Rubio expressed appreciation for Mexico’s actions to secure our common border, including deploying 10,000 National Guard troops, as well as major seizures of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals, and the expulsion of 29 major cartel figures to stand trial for their crimes, making both our nations safer.”

“Both parties agreed upon the importance of making sure there was continued action beyond meetings and suggested the implementation of a timetable and touchbacks to target clear goals and sustainable results,” the spokesperson said.