My journalist friends in Mexico ask me every day what reactions there are in Washington to the advances of war and invasion of the United States to our country. When I tell them there are no reactions, they ask me again, as if to make sure I heard what they asked. I answer:
Washington, it doesn’t work that way.
When US officials take a relationship with a country seriously, they always say in private that… “More progress and gains in mutual understanding are made by having frank discussions in private than by raising and shaking fingers in public.”
The dramatic declarations go unnoticed, because the multimillion-dollar drug market is not something foreign to the relationship with Mexico and Latin America. It is an open sore that has not healed for a long time; sometimes it bleeds more sometimes less. When a balance is made, high marks are always obtained for effort to control it, but it is easy to fail in results.
However, what is new about all the Mexican and American recriminations about fentanyl is that for the first time in the United States they are talking about how the huge arms and drug market has corrupted some officials in the United States. And although this occurs to a much lesser extent than in Mexico and other countries, the fact that it is openly discussed today is already a gain.
Americans complain of lack of cooperation. Mexicans complain that their efforts against cartels and criminals in Mexico are not given any degree of respect when in the United States cooperation is said to be nil.
But what continues to be a very serious claim is that the US agencies say they know where the most dangerous drug traffickers are, but all the power of persuasion does not move Mexico to do anything against them. That results in a waste of all operating resources. It is very valuable intelligence information, which ends up in effort and work thrown into the trash can.
The United States, unlike Mexico, does not always speak with one voice.
Mexican officials understand, and know, that Congress in Washington has enormous influence and, above all, interference in many of the actions of federal administrations in this country.
Even so, the one who conducts foreign relations is the president.
What always happens is that when the US police corporations do not find direct ways to reach the presidential ear, to complain about the lack of support for their actions, they press in their favor, approaching Congress. There are 535 independent voices. One hundred in the Senate, the rest in the House of Representatives, where pontificating is a routine matter, and this means that as a result of this police pressure, very hurtful threats and very direct insults are issued, which are confused abroad with the Official voice of the United States.
Talking about armed invasions of Mexico is as remote a reality as saying that there will soon be weekend trips to Mars.
The reality is that, for Washington, the partnership with Mexico is very important. Those who really know about the migration crisis that exists on the continent speak of the fact that only with the cooperation of Mexico can this problem be handled. Mexico is not only the largest trade partner with the United States, but it is also its main tourist destination and it is also the country that has the largest American community of expatriates, who are living their retirement in our country.
The possibility of a US president ordering military action in Mexico is extremely remote. The National Security Council has been responding for months, “We are not considering military actions in Mexican territory.”
Please remember– The National Security Council if it is part of the United States presidency– what is stated there is as if it were said by the president himself.
Remember also, that the other voices in the congress only represent the individual and local political interests of the congressmen.
Indictments (criminal charges) shed more light
Today, a week after the United States reported having infiltrated the Mexican cartels, the legal accusations, the so-called “indictments”, include details that give us a much clearer vision of the criminal scope of these organizations. They also show us their true multinational expansion.
I bet you that the majority of the Mexican people are unaware of the enormous size and enormous scope of these organizations.
From the arrests that the United States carried out this week of the associates and operators of the cartels, a lot of new information came out, which today is being used in the extradition requests that continue to advance in the various countries where these criminals were arrested.
Ivan Archivaldo Guzman
It was based on the arrests that I informed you that the blacklist of criminals and cartel associates was extended last Saturday. The DEA included among the most wanted drug traffickers Iván Archivaldo Guzmán.
The United States government, that same day, announced a reward of 10 million dollars for the capture of Iván, and with this put him on the same level as his older brother, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán.
The Department of Justice in Washington also published last week the names of the four children of Chapo Guzmán: it also released a list that includes the ten most wanted Mexican drug criminals on the planet. He directly blames the Chapitos for being the main drug traffickers causing the fentanyl crisis in the United States.
The Justice Department indictment contains six counts against Los Chapitos, whom it describes along with 24 other members of the Sinaloa cartel as the leaders of this criminal organization.
The youngest of the brothers, Ovidio Guzmán López, known as “El Ratón”, was arrested last year, and is currently in the custody of the Mexican judiciary awaiting extradition to the United States.
There is no doubt that this situation complicated the diplomatic relationship between Mexico and the United States. But, this knot continues to be very easy to untie, if the Mexican authorities are willing to cooperate in handing over these criminals.
In Washington there is open talk that Mexican cooperation has been marked for several years with a step forward–followed by another step back.
President López Obrador of Mexico is absolutely right when he says that the talk of military interventions in Mexico is directly related to the upcoming elections in the United States. He is right too, when he claims that this already complicated the whole thing. And that is very important to remember when the president in Mexico makes war harangues.
“Watch out” this week, President Joe Biden is expected to finally announce his intention to seek his presidential re-election in 2024. This time, there will be a totally new issue in the United States presidential campaign: A huge crisis with a hundred thousand deaths that the DEA says they were caused by the Mexican cartels.
Because Joe Biden will not be able to reach November of next year without showing that those guilty of these deaths are being punished by American justice. The price that Biden will need to pay for the presidency will have to include the main causes of this crisis in the prisons of the United States.
Not noticing this reality today is as serious and clumsy as running with your eyes closed.
For this reason, what is happening with the Mexican fentanyl crisis is seriously altering the relationship between the two countries. And that is also why what is happening today with that relationship… is not normal.
