The Catholic Citizenship and Social Analysis Observatory published its report 47, titled “The War Between the US and Iran. Does It Have Any Repercussion in Mexico?”. The document offers an ethical and geopolitical discernment on the conflict initiated on February 28, 2026, by the United States and Israel against the Iranian regime.
Its greatest alert focuses on the direct consequences for our Mexico, the alignment of the 4T government with Washington’s strategic adversaries and, especially, the deliberate exclusion of Mexico from the Hemispheric Security Summit “Shield of the Americas Summit”, “The Summit of the Americas” that brought together twelve Latin American nations to coordinate the eradication of drug cartels at the regional level.
The report recalls the ethical criterion of Pope Leo XIV in Dilexi te, No. 111: “The Christian faith cannot be confined to the private sphere, but demands commitment to the common good and the defense of the most vulnerable.” From that perspective, the Observatory questions the citizen passivity in the face of a war that, although occurring thousands of kilometers away, already impacts global energy stability and hemispheric security.
On February 28, 2026, joint attacks by the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leader of the Iranian theocracy for 37 years. The Assembly of 88 clerics tasked with electing a successor was bombed in Qom on March 3. Finally, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the deceased and representative of the most hardline religious faction, was appointed, which augurs an indefinite prolongation of the conflict.
Iran financed Hamas and Hezbollah, developed a nuclear program that in 2023 already reached uranium enriched to 83.7 percent and represented 31 percent of world oil production and 48 percent of proven reserves. In June 2025, Trump had already bombed three key nuclear facilities. The Iranian regime responded with internal repression—more than three thousand dead in protests—and accused imperialism and Zionism of the dissidences.
The report places the conflict in a broader context, the end of unrestricted globalization and the return of protectionism and American military supremacism under Trump. China, Russia, Iran, and Mexico appear on the same list of Washington’s main enemies since June 25, 2025. Here lies the central knot for Mexico. The government of the Fourth Transformation, populist left-wing, has distanced itself from the MAGA project. While Trump seeks to restore the Monroe Doctrine, today “Donroe,” and liquidate the regimes of Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, the 4T maintains dangerous ties.
Among them stands out the facilitation of support from Mexico to Iran’s secret ballistic missile program, according to a study by the organization Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity from September 21, 2020. Added to this are the alleged financings by the Khamenei regime to campaigns of Andrés Manuel López Obrador since 2006 and the documented connections between Mexican cartels from Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation and Los Zetas with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, including tunnels in Gaza financed by Mexican narco, money laundering, and fentanyl routes. The most emblematic case was the Venezuelan plane piloted by the Iranian terrorist Gholamreza Ghasemi that refueled in Querétaro in 2022 with authorization from the Mexican government.
The Observatory devotes special attention to the Shield of the Americas convened by Trump on March 7, 2026. Seventeen Latin American countries—among them Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, El Salvador, Chile, and Honduras—participated in what the White House defines as the central axis of the United States’ New National Security Strategy for 2026.
The explicit objective is the joint eradication of drug cartels at the Latin American level considered terrorists and main suppliers of fentanyl, as a weapon of mass destruction. Mexico was expressly and deliberately excluded, along with Brazil and Colombia. President Claudia Sheinbaum responded by reaffirming the non-intervention policy, but the Observatory interprets this exclusion as an unequivocal signal, Washington no longer trusts a government that maintains pacts with its geopolitical enemies. The U.S. strategy turns Mexico into the wall to stop the narcocartels, illegal migration, the protection of supply chains and the containment of Russia, China, and Iran. While the Mexican government collaborates selectively with the delivery of capos, Trump and his circle aim higher, ending the populist and socialist governments of the region. The Cuban-Venezuelan leadership is in retreat, only the Mexican one remains.
Far from defending Trump or the war, the Observatory proposes a responsible citizen stance. “We must demand, as civil society, that President Sheinbaum represent the Nation and not just the interests of a movement of dubious origin and catastrophic future like the self-proclaimed Fourth Transformation. Likewise, it is essential to care for our Mexican democracy with greater care, uniting the efforts of more than 60 percent of the population that did not vote for the current political group in government, which falsely presents itself as the representative of the people’s voice. It is necessary to defend the trade relationship with the United States, the T-MEC, the flow of migrants, the cultural interrelation, and other issues of citizen interest for Mexico and Latin America,” it states in its conclusions.
At a time when global reordering forces choosing sides, Mexico cannot afford to continue aligned with those Washington considers an existential threat. The exclusion from the Shield of the Americas is not a diplomatic whim: it is the confirmation that, for the United States, the cartels and their political allies are no longer a bilateral problem, but a hemispheric war that will be fought with or without Mexico.
The full report can be read here:
Catholic Citizenship and Social Analysis 47-2