This presidential campaign cycle is the first time where many Republican presidential candidates are calling for bombing the cartels and/or sending the U.S. special forces into Mexico. This comes at the same time homicides are still very high in Mexico and arrests of organized crime leaders have slowed. What do you see as the cause of these calls to intervene militarily in Mexico? Because obviously sovereignty would be a huge issue. It’s not a huge issue. It’s the issue. Those kinds of ideas are really the biggest setback that the U.S.-Mexico relationship could have. Because we have a very strong relationship. Last year, Mexico bought more from the USA than the whole European Union together. Around the border, a million and a half or 2 million people cross every day from one country to the other one. The relationship between our peoples is very, very important. We’re not just friends and allies, we are also roommates, and we share the future and we share values. We’re part of the North American region. We want to create the most competitive and most humanitarian region in the world. So when some — luckily they are some — when some people think or propose this nonsense, it’s because they’re not speaking seriously, because the implications of invading Mexico would be a game changer in geopolitics. Why do you think they’re saying this stuff? Because they want votes. Because they want to speak very loud, about things that can be catchy to some people. Is this getting a lot of attention in Mexico? Well of course. If an American senator or a candidate says that he will propose to send the military to Mexico with or without the consent of the Mexican government, what Mexico thinks is not, oh this is just rhetorical, we say first: Why are they saying that? We’re friends, we’re allies, we’re partners. Don’t you think there’s an opening for them to say that because of the huge crime issues and the drugs and cartels and how they’re affecting America too? Yeah, but why don’t we first see how these proposals can be followed inside American territory? Eighty-five percent of all the seizures of fentanyl that CBP has caught are carried by Americans. So we want to learn what they do from the border up. How does a drug get to New York, to Chicago, to San Francisco? That will be a good lesson and we can learn from that. Is there a way for Mexico to try harder to stop more of the drugs coming across the border? We’re working very hard with the American government. And how successful do you think you guys are? Well, you have to measure your success in terms of all these issues that have been happening in terms of all the drug cartels, people that have been caught. We have the Bicentennial Framework. Why is there a perception that AMLO is weaker on this issue? If you see how many people in Mexico are fighting against the drug cartels and die, it’s very unfair to tell the families of those people that Mexico is doing nothing. Because a lot of people are fighting every day against the drug cartels. There is a lot of effort in intelligence. And we are working together with the American government in the bicentennial agreements. Just two months ago, President López Obrador sent a letter to Xi Jinping asking him to help to identify who is sending precursors of fentanyl to North America. Do you know what Xi’s response was? At first he wanted to know more. There was a seizure of these precursors that showed that they came from China and so there is a conversation with them in order to see how this is working. There’s a problem with finger pointing, that instead of solving the issues, what you do is you start vocalizing the policies instead of really fighting against the crime. The drug cartels are transnational. They’re global. And we have to fight them in that way together. So instead of finger pointing, we need to get closer together. We’re very close working with the Biden administration. And we want to join the global coalition. We also have to stop the flow of American weapons to the cartels in Mexico.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment