Bilateral cooperation on the issue of security and organized crime is going through a very negative moment”.
Duncan Wood, vice president of strategy at the Wilson Center.
The meeting on the issue of security that US and Mexican officials will hold this day in Washington has a casuistic origin after two Republican senators proposed last month to call drug cartels terrorists, and also because of the echo that reached the National Palace on several press conferences, comments Javier Oliva, a specialist in security issues.
The proposal that unleashed the annoyance of President López Obrador, baptized as Resolution 18, was promoted by congressmen Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz on March 27. The proposal argues that fentanyl kills an average of 80,000 Americans a year as the leading cause of death among men ages 18 to 45.
“If AMLO had not responded (to the proposal of the Republican senators) there would have been no visibility on the issue,” Javier Oliva, a UNAM researcher, told El Economista.
Oliva recalls that then-President Donald Trump left an executive order ready to modify the category of drug cartels; from criminal organizations to terrorist groups. It was in 2020. Trump asked his defense secretary, Mark Esper, about the possibility of “launching missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs,” and doing it in secret. Esper ignored the suggestion, which he revealed in his book, A Sacred Oath.
The electoral spheres in Mexico and the US are synchronized every 12 years, on this occasion Trump, along with the Republicans, and AMLO, are already measuring their forces to prepare the ground, and for this reason they are trying to make the security issue profitable. “The styles of Trump and AMLO lend themselves to generating a different dynamic,” says Javier Oliva.
Regarding the state of alarm that the US is experiencing due to the effects of fentanyl, Javier Oliva points out that since 2010 its impact began to be known, and adds that the country always accuses abroad of its problems.
demand actions
For his part, Duncan Wood, Vice President of Strategy at the Wilson Center agrees that “the attacks launched by AMLO against the Republican Party” have caused “several voices to demand action by the Joe Biden government.”
Wood adds that today’s meeting in Washington is largely due to “the statements by President López Obrador blaming the United States and China for the demand and supply of the synthetic drug” (fentanyl).
Regarding the expectations of the meeting, Duncan points out that “very little” is expected from it because “bilateral cooperation on the issue of security and organized crime is going through a very negative time, and the options (to be analyzed during the meeting) ) are very limited.
Carlos Pérez Ricart, professor-researcher in the Department of International Studies of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) considered that the meeting is late, but it is a necessary meeting that fortunately will happen.
