The silence is deafening again. Last Thursday, William Barr, a former attorney general in the Donald Trump administration, made remarks in a article in The Wall Street Journal that they should have been the cause of an immediate denial by Mexico, without ignoring such serious accusations, that due to the way in which the bilateral relationship in terms of security is moving, with tensions, common frictions and pressures with the United States, and they are growing in this year of electoral run-ups, could become a headache for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Barr is a well-known politician in the Mexican government, with whom he had intense communication. As attorney general, his prosecutors tried to bring the former Secretary of Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos, to trial, accused of alleged ties to drug traffickers, and then he backed down for political reasons: he did not want cooperation in security matters, as threatened by the Secretary of Relations Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, was suspended. Barr even offered apologies for that not to happen, but it did. Bilateral cooperation was affected and complaints are currently dragging on with the Joe Biden government.
It is not known if Barr felt ripped off by the Mexican government, but it appears so. His article has very sensitive paragraphs, particularly one where he refers to the president’s security strategy and the permanent invocation of national sovereignty to block an action by the United States. “The Mexican cartels have flourished because the Mexican governments have not had the desire to put an end to them, with the exception of President Felipe Calderón, who went all-out against the cartels,” he said. “Today, the chief facilitator of the cartels is President López Obrador.”
Barr’s accusation has not found a response in Mexico, where there does not seem to be much sensitivity about what is happening with the United States in terms of security, one of the central axes through which the bilateral relationship runs and triggers repercussions. However, you have to listen to him, not only because of what he represented, but because he is one of the influential Republican voices that is helping to build the narco-State discourse in Mexico and closing the spaces for maneuver for the Biden government.
In the United States, despite the emphasis and nuances, there is a State policy against drug cartels. The fentanyl crisis, which has been dragging on since the Trump government, became a problem for Biden’s due to the more than 108,000 deaths from the disease in that country last year. In the last three weeks, the angry skin of US officials and legislators has been seen in the Senate, but Barr’s article put things on another level, because he opened the door to see what is being done on Capitol Hill.
Barr mentioned a draft joint resolution (the H.J.RES.18) of the Republican representatives Dan Crenshaw of Texas, and Michael Waltz of Florida, who requests the authorization to use the Armed Forces against the Mexican drug cartels, which was presented on January 12, and which has not yet been listed to discuss it and bring it to a vote in plenary. But this is just one of many.
An investigation of Central axis In early February, it revealed that in the first 18 business days of this year, it presented 10 bills and resolutions in the Chamber of Deputies focused on security and corruption, which not only included the Crenshaw and Waltz proposal, but also projects to tax with 5% remittances -which have prevented the tearing of the social fabric in Mexico and has been a stabilization factor-, to continue the construction of Trump’s wall, and expand the Ley Magnitsky Mexican officials and hold them accountable for human rights violations and corruption.
The language in many of those bills refers to the Mexican cartels as “narcoterrorists” and “terrorists.” Last week, not coincidentally, during a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Biden once chaired, prosecutor Merrick Garland said he would not object if the State Department classified Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations”, although he noted that there are diplomatic obstacles that would require the approval of the Mexican government, because those detained under that definition would be tried under US law.
This is a growing current of opinion in that country. On February 8, 21 attorneys general -all of them Republicans- sent a carta Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to categorize the Mexican cartels as “terrorist organizations,” which they identified as a threat to national security not only because of their shipments of fentanyl, but for having built “well-rounded armed forces.” developed” on our southern border. It is the line of thought of Barr, who wrote that cartels must be confronted not with the police, but as threats to national security. “Those narcoterrorist groups are more similar to the Islamic State than to the mafia in the United States,” he stressed.
Biden is under great pressure from the Republicans and has begun to transfer his pressures to the government of Mexico. The arrest of Ovidio Guzmán López, considered the main introducer of fentanyl into the United States, was the first where he was used by force. They have continued to pressure them to expedite the extraditions, including that of Guzmán López and Rafael Caro Quintero, and provide them with reliable data on fentanyl. Here they have resisted. The capture of Joaquín’s son could not be avoided El Chapo Guzmán, but a post-arrest crime, use of exclusive Army weapons, blocked his extradition.
The Biden government has explored with its counterparts in Mexico the possibility of declaring the cartels “terrorist organizations”, but has received no response. Space is running out for the Mexican government, which will have to make a decision in the not too distant term, because its ambiguity has become unsustainable.
twitter: @rivapa