Cartels Are Exploiting Mexico’s Cattle Trade As Americans Pay More For Beef

Traffickers use falsified paperwork and black-market identification tags to launder smuggled animals into legitimate Mexican commerce.

his week, the United States began reopening its southern border to Mexican cattle after New World Screwworm forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture to close livestock ports along the border. Douglas, Arizona, reopened first, across from Agua Prieta, Sonora.

Sonora and neighboring Chihuahua have historically accounted for more than 60 percent of Mexico’s live-cattle exports to the United States. The USDA also identified both states as the lowest-risk places to begin the phased reopening. Douglas serves the Sonora trade, while Santa Teresa and Columbus, New Mexico, which serve Chihuahua, remain closed while the USDA evaluates whether to reopen them next.

These cases in Sonora and Chihuahua raise an immediate biosecurity question, but the deeper problem is the livestock system itself.

Mexican cartels have worked their way into Mexico’s cattle business, extorting ranchers, controlling sales, and corrupting the records and documents used to move cattle legally.

The USDA estimates roughly 800,000 cattle are smuggled from Central America into Mexico each year, creating an illicit market worth about $320 million. On Aug. 11, the USDA and the Department of Homeland Security announced a new agreement to detect and interdict illicit livestock movement at and between ports of entry. But the vulnerability begins long before an animal reaches the border.

Traffickers use falsified paperwork and black-market identification tags to move smuggled animals into legitimate Mexican commerce. Once an illegal animal acquires official documents and identification, it becomes far harder to distinguish from cattle that entered the system lawfully.

Ranchers who follow the rules are then forced to compete against operators who do not.

Cartel Control

Northern Jalisco’s brucellosis- and tuberculosis-free status made the region eligible to export cattle to the United States, giving cartel control of the local cattle trade consequences far beyond the region itself. Across roughly 10 municipalities producing about 100,000 export-bound cattle a year, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, installed regional collectors, dictated whom ranchers could sell to, and extracted roughly five pesos per kilogram from transactions.

Through compromised local officials, CJNG gained access to the records of Mexico’s agricultural health agency and national livestock identification system.

CJNG enforced their control with threats and violence. CJNG forced rancher Víctor Ponce Ríos to serve as a cattle collector in the Huejúcar area and later demanded 2 million pesos in derecho de piso, an extortion payment tied to operating under cartel control. In May 2023, he was kidnapped and up to 150 of his cattle were stolen. His body was found the following month. Investigators documented that the cattle were moved using paperwork and transit guides issued through the local livestock association.

That is why inspection at the U.S. border cannot be the only line of defense. By the time an animal reaches an American inspection chute, the corruption may have happened hundreds of miles earlier.

The U.S. Treasury’s response reflects the broader criminal economy CJNG has built around its drug-trafficking enterprise. On July 23, Treasury carried out its largest sanctions action against CJNG to date, designating more than 50 individuals and entities tied to the cartel’s leadership, trafficking operations, finances, and businesses, including agricultural companies.

The U.S. has seen that Mexico will take action to protect access to American markets. On Aug. 5, the United States suspended avocado-export inspections in Michoacán after a security alert. Nearly 90 percent of Mexico’s avocado exports by volume go to the American market. Within roughly 24 hours, Mexico deployed 1,557 Army and National Guard personnel into key producing areas. Inspections resumed on Aug. 13 after additional security measures were put in place. The deployment did not break cartel control of the industry, but it showed how quickly Mexico can act when market access is at risk.

That same leverage should apply to livestock as cattle trade with Mexico resumes.

The USDA has said the schedule remains flexible and that port openings may be paused if risk increases in either state.

Inspecting cattle near the end of the route will not solve the problem if cartels still influence how animals enter the system, how they are documented, and where they can move.

A better approach is for the USDA, DHS, and law enforcement to feed livestock, transportation, traceability, and criminal intelligence into U.S. Northern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force–Counter Cartel. The Americas Counter Cartel Coalition can reinforce that effort by targeting the brokers, haulers, document fraud, and financial networks that move illicit cattle north.

Shrinking Cattle Herd

But enforcement alone will not solve the problem. America also needs to rebuild its cattle herd.

The USDA counted 86.2 million cattle and calves at the start of 2026, down from 94.7 million in 2019. The country has lost roughly 8.5 million head in seven years, leaving the national herd near levels not seen since the early 1950s.

Americans are paying more for beef as the U.S. cattle herd continues to shrink. Ground beef averaged $6.89 per pound in July, nearly 57 percent higher than in July 2021 and about 10 percent higher than a year earlier. Steak reached a record $13.06 per pound.

Reopening the Mexican cattle trade is unlikely to change that anytime soon. Mexico historically supplies about 1.1 million cattle a year, roughly 3 percent of the U.S. cattle supply, and agricultural economists expect the phased reopening to take months before imports approach normal levels. Most of those animals are feeder cattle that will require additional months of production before reaching the beef supply.

Imports can fill gaps, but they should not become a substitute for rebuilding American cattle inventories.

Buy beef from a local rancher when you can. Support independent processors and retailers that can tell you where the animal was raised. Put more of your food dollars into the ranches, truckers, feed suppliers, and rural communities that produce American cattle. Shake the hands that feed you.

Cartels have already penetrated livestock markets, corrupted records, extorted producers, and exploited cross-border commerce. Agriculture belongs inside the counter cartel fight. Security must be a condition of trade.