Claudia Sheinbaum, the hand-picked successor of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will be the next president of Mexico.

Unfortunately, that means U.S.-Mexico relations remain on a dangerous course which has empowered drug cartels and brought skyrocketing overdoses and uncontrolled migration to the United States.

Sheinbaum owes her victory almost entirely to the highly popular Lopez Obrador government, leaving little chance that she will distance herself from the man universally known as AMLO.

Under the incumbent’s government, U.S.-Mexico relations have seen a dangerous deterioration.

New threats have emerged on the border—ranging from fentanyl, weaponized mass migration and terrorist networks—and important opportunities for collaboration, such as nearshoring supply chains from China, have been largely squandered.

Worse still, deepening narco-corruption adds a powerful force working against a necessary change of course in Mexico.

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All this means that if the vital relationship between the U.S. and Mexico is to stabilize, the Biden administration must right the ship.

To date, Washington has largely been a passive observer of the relationship’s continued collapse.

This is best evidenced by the utter breakdown of counter-narcotics cooperation with Mexico.

Opioid overdoses, facilitated by the free flow of Chinese precursor chemicals to Mexico’s cartels, continue to kill over 100,000 Americans each year.

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has stood by as AMLO has repeatedly denied Mexico’s role in the fentanyl crisis.

Even when Mexico’s government terminated the longstanding Merida Initiative, upending counter-drug cooperation with U.S. law enforcement, President Biden remained silent.

American permissiveness goes back years, through multiple presidential administrations.

In 2020, under President Trump, U.S. law enforcement agents arrested former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos after uncovering his collaboration with the drug cartels.

Yet after substantial diplomatic pressure from Mexico, the U.S. released Cienfuegos, whom AMLO subsequently decorated with a medal honoring his service.

In 2011, the Obama administration even dropped a DEA investigation revealing credible narco-corruption directly implicating AMLO, then a presidential candidate.

However, surging U.S. fentanyl deaths make the Biden administration’s willingness to ignore Mexico’s security backsliding far more egregious.

And it’s not just narcotics.

The Biden administration has also been a largely passive observer of major trade disputes, expropriation of U.S. companies in Mexico and even threatening actions against American journalists by the Mexican government.

Minimizing confrontations with Mexico serves two purposes for the Biden administration.

First, it lets Washington focus on its other preferred foreign policy projects.

Second, it allows President Biden to secure transient support from the Mexican government on migration.

With migration spiking this year, for example, the Biden administration has been beseeching Mexico to crack down on migrant caravans before they reach the southern border.

Mexico, realizing that a second Trump administration would be a much more aggressive counterpart—in 2023 President Donald Trump promised to use U.S. special forces to confront cartels, for example—has responded with a major increase in border enforcement.

But any short-term advantage Biden is gaining from this approach to Mexico is accompanied by long-term negative consequences for Americans.

Fentanyl inflows to the United States tripled between 2021 and 2023.

Illegal migration has also skyrocketed during this period.

Over time, AMLO’s willingness to undermine American interests has become more and more brazen—and that trend isn’t likely to change under Sheinbaum, his chosen successor.

The next presidential administration shouldn’t accept this status quo.

Maintaining a strong relationship with Mexico is vital for Americans’ prosperity, and Washington can take simple actions to improve the current crisis.

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First and foremost, the U.S. should stop outsourcing migration enforcement to the Mexican government.

Doing so would not only improve security at the southern border, but also deny the Mexican government the invaluable leverage that AMLO and his allies have wielded over the United States for years.

Next, the U.S. should reassert its national security and economic interests in the bilateral relationship.

If Washington linked American trade and remittances to national security and migration, for example, Mexico would be forced to take more responsibility for our shared border.

The scheduled 2026 review of the USMCA trade agreement is a key opportunity to change this dynamic.

Finally, if Sheinbaum’s government continues to pursue the same narco-friendly agenda as her predecessor, the White House should seriously consider how it can deploy U.S. military assets to confront the criminal cartels facilitating the mass flow of migration and bringing in the fentanyl that’s slaughtering our sons and daughters.

It’s time to tell Washington that taking control of our relationship with our southern neighbor must be a top priority.