Mexico must recognize the sea-change in American public opinion and governance on issues like immigration and drug trafficking, and act accordingly.

Editor’s Note: The following speech by Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, was delivered at the third annual US-Mexico Policy Summit on September 23. It has been edited for style and clarity. 

Thank you. It is an honor to be here with you all this morning. And it is especially an honor to be here with my old friends, Greg Sindelar and Josh Trevino, who invited me to speak this morning about the sobering reality of the US-Mexico relationship today and the significant opportunities we have for improving that relationship in the future

Josh and I first began thinking about how to improve the US-Mexico relationship when we were working together at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in late 2019. 

It was clear to me then—as it is clear to me now—that there is no more immediate threat to the peace and happiness of ordinary American families than the flood of drugs, criminals, and chaos that can be unleashed on them from across the Rio Grande.

The next four years confirmed every fear I had about what happens when the US–Mexico relationship is mismanaged.

Together, Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador represented the worst versions of American and Mexican leadership that have hurt our countries for decades.

In Washington, President Biden—or, more accurately, whoever controlled Biden’s autopen that day—spent his time defending abstract ideals of “democracy” and pushing for so-called climate action, a misguided ideology that further impoverishes the poorest people in our respective countries. But when it came time to stand up for the sovereignty of America’s borders, the safety of her communities, or the interests of her people? Silence.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador preached “hugs not bullets” and posed as an anti-corruption crusader. Behind closed doors, he empowered cronies and collaborated with some of the most violent on the planet. Today, his party MORENA has replaced the PRI as the national sponsor of Mexico’s organized crime. 

This combination of American weakness and Mexican corruption proved disastrous. 

In Mexico, cartel turf wars expanded and intensified. The country became a highway for tens of millions of the most desperate people in the world—from China, Senegal, Venezuela—and for the extremely dangerous organizations trying to exploit them. Their destinations were everyday American communities where they continue to wreak havoc. The consequences can’t be overstated.

Between 2018 and 2022, more than 250,000 Americans died because of fentanyl made in China and trafficked onto our streets by Mexican cartels. That’s more than all of our casualties in every war since WWII, combined. Worse still, despite all the damage inflicted on both our communities, our leaders barely stirred. The American people, however, did wake up. According to Pew, in 2017, 65 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Mexico.  By the end of 2024, 60 percent had an unfavorable view—a massive swing. 

On the Right, it is even more stark. Eighty percent of Republicans now hold an unfavorable view of Mexico. Count me and all my Heritage colleagues and supporters—the best cross section of conservatives in America—among them. This shift isn’t because Americans hate immigrants. It is because we have learned a hard truth. Mass migration is neither an inevitable phenomenon nor should it be tolerated. 

It is an invasion, aimed at undermining our sovereignty, facilitated by Democrats and core elements of the Mexican government who collaborate with cartels and profit from the destruction. The anger Americans feel at this betrayal—the righteous anger of American families—is why Donald Trump returned to the White House. And it is also why Americans now not only support, but also are eager for the president to use economic, political, and, yes, military means to defend our country. 

Now, as I’m sure our two ambassadors will remind you today, this is not Biden’s Washington. And it is not Lopez Obrador’s Mexico. 

Thank God for that! And allow me to be the first to acknowledge the progress that has been made. The border is closed and quieter than it has been in many years. In February, Mexico extradited 29 cartel members to the United States. Last month, they sent 26 more. Donald Trump was, in fact, right when he said that “all we really needed was a new President.” These are all steps in the right direction. 

And given this progress, it would be all too easy to stand here today, pat one another on the back, and take a nice diplomatic photo. But if my late friend Charlie Kirk stood for anything, it was telling the truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable. And as friends and neighbors, we have an obligation to be forthright and frank with one another. 

So, in the spirit of friendship, let me be blunt: the progress we have made in the last nine months is only further evidence that we could have kept the border closed and kept our people safe all along.

Biden and Lopez Obrador’s disastrous leadership was not an anomaly—it was the most destructive example of a longstanding dynamic in the US-Mexico relationship stretching back to NAFTA. American leaders undermined sovereignty, exported jobs, and imported labor in the naive hope that Mexico would liberalize. Mexican leaders took advantage, empowered cartels, and consolidated power in Mexico City.

And while our diplomats might be getting along better now, our people are still suffering. Just ask the parents of Laken Riley, murdered by an illegal alien at the University of Georgia. Or ask the Mexicans who discovered the personal effects of loved ones at cartel death pits in Jalisco.

The truth is this: what was done at the highest levels for decades cannot be undone overnight. It will not be undone if we mistake the small amount of progress we have made for a great victory. And it will not be undone as long as President Claudia Sheinbaum is using the same corrupt playbook as her predecessor. She may be different in name—and more subtle in style—but we can all see that the substance of her leadership is the same. 

So, on behalf of everyone at The Heritage Foundation and all of our friends on the American Right, let me be clear. Extraditions and a quieter border are the bare minimum. We know Mexico is capable of much more. We know the men ultimately responsible for the deaths of our countrymen are not the criminals extradited, but the generals and senators who continue to be protected by the Sheinbaum administration.

We know that the 4T (Fourth Transformation) is one of the most anti-American political movements in the world. 

We know you trash American values while inviting Russian and Chinese troops to participate in your Independence Day parades at the Zócalo. 

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We know that, if you had it your way, Mexican society would look more like Venezuela and less like the United States than it already does. 

We know that, despite all of Mexico’s criticism and fearmongering about US interventionism, it is the Mexican regime that is propping up Marxist dictatorships across the hemisphere. 

Worse still, we know that Mexico is using its network of nearly 50 consulates around the country to interfere in our political and social affairs. That’s the largest number of consulates any country has within another nation’s borders. Perhaps that number should be significantly diminished. 

We also know that Mexico is actively lending aid to illegal aliens and insurrectionists in our cities. And we know that Mexican soldiers are illegally entering the United States. 

We know all of this. And I want you to know that we will hold you accountable. More importantly, though, I want you to know why we will hold you accountable. And the reason for that is something that we know about Americans. 

They are fed up with a Mexico that refuses to govern its territory, refuses to protect its people, and represents a constant threat to our peace and prosperity. Americans want better. They deserve better. And they are demanding better. To give the American people what they want, to ensure that the destruction of the Biden-Lopez Obrador era never happens again, and—if it is possible—to transform the relationship between our two countries from a liability that endangers us to an asset that benefits both our peoples and our region, we need to take one massive step. 

We need to abandon the timidity and weakness that have defined US policy toward Mexico for so long and begin wielding robust American strength in defense of our people and in pursuit of our strategic interests.

This change will be most evident in two areas. First, a strong United States should be unapologetic in its use of lethal military force to defend its citizens from the grave threat of criminal gangs and narco-cartels. We should strike terrorists in international waters, and if necessary, within cartel-controlled areas of Mexico itself. 

There’s precedent for this. When the Mexican government had lost control of its own territory before—under Santa Anna in 1848, for example, or Carranza in 1916—the United States had no choice but to intervene. And, as our Vice President reminded us recently: “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”

Second, a strong United States should take full advantage of our opportunity to review the USMCA between now and July 1, 2026, and leverage it to renegotiate the entirety of the US-Mexico relationship in line with our interests. Of course, that means resetting our trade and commerce to benefit the American workers sacrificed under NAFTA.

But a good deal will also break the Mexican regime’s political and military alliance with criminal cartels and give the United States the opportunity to administer justice to the corrupt officials who enabled it. It will reassert the Roosevelt Corollary and put an end to Mexico’s strategic anti-American relationships with China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. 

It will require Mexico to adhere to its treaty obligations—most notably the 1944 Rio Grande water agreement and the agricultural provisions under the USMCA—which it currently breaks with impunity. And it will make the Mexican government abandon its current attempt to transform Mexico into a Venezuela on our Southern border. 

I know that in the past—in the times of NAFTA and Open Borders—you all counted on conservatives to oppose such aggressive negotiating, to call on our leaders to separate security and political concerns from economic ones, to push for the “invisible hand” of the free market to direct our economies and sign our trade deals. 

But you all abused this arrangement, and today you are dealing with a new Right in the United States. Now, when President Trump chooses to leverage the full power of government in strategic negotiations to secure positive outcomes for Americans, the Conservative Movement won’t chide him; we will offer him our full support. 

I know what some of you are thinking. Surely, he is exaggerating. Mexico can wait Trump out—the deadlines will pass, the midterms will come, and a neomarxist Democrat who won’t hold us accountable will return by 2029. 

Well, I want you to hear this: the American Right isn’t going anywhere. We are growing stronger than ever. So strong, in fact, that our opponents are resorting to the type of extraordinary violence that is commonplace in Mexico. But we aren’t backing down. 

For the first time in nearly 40 years, the conservative movement is a force to be reckoned with. So, whether you hear me today or five years from now, know this: a reset in the US-Mexico relationship is not the fleeting desire of a single man. It is one of the chief goals of an ascendant political movement.

We will not only maintain our majorities in next year’s midterms. We will increase them. In 2028, we are going to win again. And in 2032, again. And in 2036, again. And in 2040, again. 

We are going to be in power for a generation. America will once again lift its head and stand first among the nations. Whether Mexico stands with us or against us is entirely up to you. 

About the Author: Kevin Roberts

Dr. Kevin D. Roberts is the president of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America.

Image: Winston O’Neal / Shutterstock.com.

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