Mexico makes record fentanyl seizure

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said Mexico has been working for years to stop the flow of fentanyl, and that the U.S. should in turn be doing more to curb the demand for the drug at home and the flow of guns to Mexican criminal groups.

Driving the news: More than a ton of fentanyl pills were confiscated in Sinaloa, according to Security and Public Safety Secretary Omar García Harfuch .

• He added that more than 43 clandestine labs for synthetic drugs had been dismantled in northern Mexican states from October —when Sheinbaum took office — to this month.
• Sheinbaum said Wednesday in her morning news conference that the most recent seizure "was equivalent to about 20 million doses" taken off the streets, making it the largest operation of its kind.

What they're saying: The timing of the seizure seems suspect because of the back-and-forth between Sheinbaum and Trump, says Catalina Pérez Correa, a law analyst specializing in the criminal system and drug policy in Latin America.

• "It begs the question that if they've been able to do seizure operations like this for a while, why was it until after the tariff threat that they did so?" she asked, also suggesting the government might've been lacking will or was simply waiting to send a message.
• Pérez Correa adds that seizures alone aren't that effective in the long term, because studies have shown drug-trafficking groups usually just respond by making more product to have a "surplus and leftover" in case part is confiscated.

Between the lines: The seizure also comes as use of the fentanyl has been growing in Mexico in the past few years, as criminal groups who produce the drug mostly for U.S. consumption have been increasingly selling it locally when they can't smuggle it across the border.

• Specialized nonprofit groups have sounded the alarm over this especially since naloxone — the nasal spray that counters the effect of a fentanyl overdose — is mostly unavailable in the country.