Sheinbaum Has A Red-Line On US Troops
Will Trump understand that and make a deal around it?
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In 2014, when Mexican marines screeched up to the Miramar condominiums in Mazatlán to nab the cocaine king “El Chapo,” they had a rather light-skinned member of the team - DEA agent Andrew Hogan. According to Hogan, he waited outside to guard the perimeter while the marines stormed upstairs and nabbed Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was holed up with his beauty queen wife and a Kalashnikov. But when the agent got the radio signal, he says, he drove into the underground garage, where they took the captured drug lord, and Hogan put on Chapo’s own cap, which he had pocketed from a previous raid.
“I ran right up to him, jumped into his face and said the first thing that came into my head,” Hogan says. “I screamed, ‘What’s up Chapo?’ ”
Hogan’s activity sparks a sensitive question: Was he overstepping the boundaries of what U.S. agents are allowed to do in Mexico? U.S. agents operate here, meeting with informants and tracking cell phones of suspects, but it’s illegal for them to make arrests or kick down doors with guns blazing. Likewise, U.S. special forces cross the Rio Grande to train Mexican troops and the CIA is given permission to fly Reaper drones if they share intelligence. But Mexico does not allow Seal Team 6 to parachute in and shoot up “El Mencho” like they did Osama bin Laden.
There are, however, U.S. operations that could be overstepping that mark. Another DEA agent, Víctor Vázquez, took part in the raid on Chapo, storming in dressed in camo and holding a Mexican military rifle. And in 2012, a CIA contractor was reported to enter Mexico on a false passport days before he drove towards a Mexican marine base and was attacked by federal police officers, who apparently worked for a cartel.
The question of how much the Pentagon can act in Mexico has come to center stage as President Donald Trump said he requested that U.S. troops launch full-on combat operations south of the border but Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has turned him down. Sheinbaum has been working hard to accommodate Trump, but she has a redline…
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