Narcos: Mexico star Diego Luna says Trump’s border wall is 'not going to stop anything'

Netflix's Narcos is undergoing a transformation this season, leaving behind the stories of Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel for a reboot (of sorts) focusing on Mexico and the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel, led by Félix Gallardo.

Gallardo is played by Diego Luna, who told Variety that the series hopes to make a powerful statement about relations between the US and Mexico and the involvement of both countries in the drug trade.

"A wall is not going to stop anything," he said. "They’ve put a rapid succession of drug dealers in jail, and that hasn’t stopped anything either because this is a system, a corrupt system, that has seeped into every level of power on both sides of the border…. That’s what the series says: that we have to work together towards a solution. It's not them against us."

The season will explore the roots of the modern drug war in the rise of Gallardo's Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s, which unified a disorganised collective of independent traffickers into a single empire. It will also tell the story of DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Michael Peña), who moved his family from California to Guadalajara to investigate Gallardo – the results of which would affect the drug trade for years to come.

"This [criminal] structure that was built in the ’80s…it wasn’t just the drug dealers that were involved It was the politicians, it was the police, it was the military on both sides of the border," the actor said. "So, yes, this is a good case to start asking ourselves how much all of us are involved together in the problem because once we recognize that, then we can all be part of the solution, which is certainly not a wall."

He continued: "But I also want to say that this is just a series, and the beauty of this is that hopefully it can trigger curiosity in audiences to go deeper and go research a little more – to read about it, to see documentaries, to open the newspapers looking for clues about this situation and about our relations….While we are talking about this, 5,000 [U.S.] military [troops] are going south to the border in Mexico."

"So we do need to care about what’s happening in each other’s country because every decision we make is connected to the lives of others."

Narcos: Mexico will be released on Netflix on 16 November.

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