Mexico’s Underground War: Lithium, Cartels, and the New Global Cold Front

The new map of power is not drawn by borders but by mineral veins.
Mexico City, October 2025

Mexico is fighting a war that does not appear in official speeches. It is not waged in the streets but beneath them. Across the northern deserts, where lithium promises energy independence, a deeper conflict is taking shape: the struggle for territorial and sovereign control. What is celebrated as a symbol of national pride has become, in practice, a resource administered by criminal networks, foreign capital, and a militarized bureaucracy that manages the country’s subsoil wealth with minimal transparency.

The World Bank estimates that global demand for lithium will rise by more than 400 percent before 2035. With probable reserves exceeding 1.7 million tons, Mexico occupies a strategic position. Yet that advantage has turned into risk. The U.S. Treasury Department has tracked over 180 million dollars linked to triangulated mining operations, while InsightCrime has documented the presence of at least six criminal organizations embedded within extraction corridors. The routes of fentanyl and lithium overlap, sharing logistics and legal facades.

In states such as Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango, cartels have grasped what the state has not: the future of power is decided on the ground, not in parliaments. They acquire communal lands through intermediaries, extort companies operating under corporate shells and impose authority in communities long abandoned by the government. The International Crisis Group has noted a significant increase in criminal control across areas with active mining concessions. Power there is exercised through contracts or through fear.

At the international level, competition grows sharper. Chatham House warns that Latin America has become the epicenter of the geopolitics of critical minerals. Under the USMCA framework, Washington seeks to build a bloc of secure minerals to reduce dependence on China, while Beijing channels investment through mixed-capital consortia across South America. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) describes this as a form of strategic nearshoring that reshapes hemispheric resource control. On that silent chessboard, Mexico plays the role of intermediary: it proclaims sovereignty yet functions as a logistical corridor for the new global balance.

The government nationalized lithium through LitioMx, invoking technological independence, but its operational capacity remains limited. Militarization has not brought governance; it has brought opacity. The patriotic narrative conceals a structural dependence on international markets. In practice, Mexico’s energy sovereignty operates through legal exceptions and tacit arrangements with actors who never appear in official statements.

The OECD and the Inter-American Development Bank warn that Mexico risks exclusion from the ethical-minerals supply chains demanded by Europe and Asia unless it adopts transparent traceability systems and stronger environmental governance. The paradox is stark: the country seeks to lead the green transition while its mining model depends on gray economies. Each ton of lithium extracted consumes more than 2 000 liters of water, in regions where the FAO forecasts a severe water crisis for over twelve million people. The wealth beneath threatens to consume the land above.

Organized crime is no longer an intruder; it has become a de facto administrator of capital and governance. It controls permits, collects fees and guarantees security. It does not oppose the state; it replaces it. It functions with corporate efficiency and the legitimacy of those who impose order amid absence. What was once called drug trafficking has evolved into a parallel economy of the underground.

From a sociopolitical and psychological perspective, this phenomenon erodes the very sense of belonging. Citizens perceive a state that celebrates sovereignty even as it delegates it. This collective dissonance breeds a hollow pride: owning a resource that is no longer under national control. Faith in sovereignty rests on an illusion of dominance, dissolved between concessions and silences.

The Brookings Institution observes that the convergence of organized crime and resource extraction creates hybrid governance zones where illicit actors substitute the state. Chatham House concurs: the global energy transition is not merely redefining economics; it is rewriting the meaning of sovereignty itself.

At its core, lithium is not a resource but a frontier. The struggle is not about its market value but about the right to decide who rules the land. Crime imposes order where the state retreats, and foreign investment fills the voids of governance.

Mexico is not losing a visible war; it is losing a symbolic one. The enemy carries no flag. It arrives as a partner, an investor, a promise of progress. Borders no longer divide nations but models of power: the institutional and the clandestine.

Mexican lithium stands as a mirror of paradox, a nation aspiring to become an energy power while its sovereignty fractures in the hands of those who never run for office. What lies beneath the soil is not just a mineral but the most uncomfortable question of our time: who truly governs the national territory?

In the coming decade, the fate of Mexico’s lithium will not be measured in tons but in legitimacy. Nations that learn to govern their resources without sacrificing democracy will define the moral frontier of the twenty-first century. Mexico can still be one of them if it understands that sovereignty is not proclaimed but administered.

Mario  López Ayala is a senior Mexican journalist, geopolitical analyst, and applied psychologist at Phoenix24. His multidisciplinary work bridges strategic intelligence, cyber-warfare, and AI governance with behavioral insight and mental health. As an international speaker and strategic profiler, he has contributed to global forums on democracy, cognition, and digital disruption. Known for decoding power and perception, López Ayala explores narrative manipulation, societal resilience, and global security in the digital age. He is an active member of the United Communicators Organization of Sinaloa (OCUS).

References

1. World Bank (2024). Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition.Washington, D.C.
2. InsightCrime (2024). Organized Crime and Mining in Latin America. Bogotá.
3. U.S. Department of the Treasury (2024). Illicit Finance Risk Assessment on the Mining Sector. Washington, D.C.
4. Center for Strategic and International Studies (2025). Securing Critical Minerals in the Western Hemisphere.Washington, D.C.
5. Chatham House (2024). The New Geopolitics of Critical Minerals. London.
6. Brookings Institution (2024). Organized Crime and Resource Governance in Latin America. Washington, D.C.
7. OECD (2024). Responsible Mineral Supply Chains and Due Diligence Policy Outlook 2024. Paris.
8. Inter-American Development Bank (2024). Governance Challenges in Latin America’s Energy Transition.Washington, D.C.
9. FAO (2024). Water Stress and Food Security in Northern Mexico. Rome.
10. International Crisis Group (2024). Mexico’s Hidden Wars: Organized Crime and Local Governance. Brussels.