The president of Mexico released a warning last month in response to the news that President Donald Trump’s government planned to designate drug cartels as terrorist groups.
“If they came to decree crime of organized crime as ‘terrorists’, because we would have to expand the demand in the United States,” said Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico, at a press conference.
He referred to an unusual lawsuit that will be analyzed by the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, in which Mexico argues that US weapons manufacturers have helped in arms trafficking used by posters.
The case reverses the former complaints of President Trump that Mexican cartels have contributed to the increase in violence in the United States. Instead, Mexico argues that most weapons found in Mexican crimes are from the United States. Request about US $ 10 billion for damages to American weapons manufacturers.
The litigation is presented to the judges at a time of great tension between the two countries, since the Trump government relies on Mexico to take energetic measures against illegal immigration and posters organizations. It is expected that tariffs on the products imported from Mexico to enter into force on Tuesday, the same day that the judges will examine the demand on weapons.
President Trump has mentioned drug trafficking from Mexico as one of the factors that have promoted the decision to impose tariffs. His government has taken a series of measures to deal with cartels, including the designation of more than half dozen criminal groups such as foreign terrorist organizations. This measure could lead to sanctions, including criminal charges, for the companies involved in the cartels, but has also raised the concern of the Mexican government for a possible violation of its sovereignty.
The lawyers of the Government of Mexico argue that American manufacturers and sellers are accomplices of what they call an “iron river” of firearms that enter the country and assemble the posters. Strict controls on the purchase of weapons in Mexico point out, where civilians are not allowed to acquire the types of fast and powerful military style that cartels prefer, as proof that every year they are introduced from smuggling into Mexican territory up to half a million firearms from the United States.
“It is much easier and much more efficient to stop the criminal chain of weapons in its origin and close the key,” said Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence and former litigator against the arms industry, who has worked in the case on behalf of Mexico.
Weapons manufacturers, to which a series of weapons defense groups have been joined, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), have argued that the demand would undermine the rights of weapons in the United States.
“Mexico has extinguished its constitutional right to weapons and now intends to extinguish that of the United States,” the NRA said in a support of weapons manufacturers. “To that end, Mexico intends to financially destroy the US firearms industry.”
The case can be seen with skepticism by the Supreme Court, where the conservative supermayer of six to three has worked to expand the rights of weapons. But, at a time when Trump has put the country in the spotlight, the case has offered a forum for Mexico to express their arguments that American weapons manufacturers share the responsibility for cartels violence. The Mexican government has also sued several arms stores in Arizona and could expand its effort by presenting additional demands.
At a conference held last month in Latin America, Pablo Rocha, legal advisor to the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, said that the two demands filed so far are only the principle of a broader legal strategy to counteract the flow of weapons through the border.
For years, Mexico has pressed to the United States to make more to stop the American manufacturing weapons through the border. When Trump announced that he would delay tariffs against Mexico last month, both nations had agreed to address their respective concerns: Mexican authorities promised to work to stop drug flow through the border, while the Americans would try to combat arms trafficking.
In recent days, there have been indications of improving relations between the two countries, such as when the Mexican government sent almost 30 high operations of posters sought by US authorities this week. But within the White House, Trump’s advisors are still divided on the convenience of taking more substantial actions in Mexico, including the realization of military attacks against Mexican drug cartels.
A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comments.
Mexico first sued several arms companies in 2021, arguing that the bloodshed of the posters was “the foreseeable result of the deliberate commercial actions and practices of the defendants.”
A judge of first instance dismissed the case, considering that it was prohibited by a federal law of 2005 that limits litigation against manufacturers and distributors of arms and has provided immunity against the actions filed by the families of people dead and injured by their weapons.
A unanimous panel of judges of the Court of Appeal of the First Circuit of the United States, in Boston, annulled that decision. They considered that the lawsuit met the criteria of a part of the law that allows to litigate in cases where violations knowing the firearms laws are direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.
The arms manufacturers asked the judges to see the case, Smith & Wesson Brands against the United Mexican States, no. 23-1141. Smith & Wesson’s lawyers argued that Mexico had presented a legal theory that was a “eight -steps Rubegberg, starting with the production and sale of firearms in the United States and ending with the damages that drug cartels inflict the Mexican government”.
The lawyers argue that arms manufacturers legally acted in the United States and cannot be considered responsible for illegal cartels in Mexico. They cited a case of the 2023 Supreme Court in which the Court unanimously ruled that social media companies could not be sued for helping terrorism because they housed publications of the Islamic State.
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A judge of first instance dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit against six of the accused for other reasons, letting the decision of the Supreme Court in the case apply to the demands against Smith & Wesson, arms manufacturer, and interstate Arms, a wholesaler.