Yes, Mexico Has Narco Corruption; So Does The USA
Trump's trade war targets "intolerable alliance" with drug traffickers; but what are his other motives?
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UPDATE - The story has been updated throughout on Feb. 3 to show that the tariffs on Mexico were paused for a month.
Estimates of the value of the illegal drug economy are always problematic precisely because of its clandestine nature. But the most thorough effort is made in the USA by the Rand Corporation on behalf of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (also known as the Drug Czar’s office). The most recent in its series entitled “What America’s Users Spend on Illegal Drugs” concluded that in 2016, Americans splashed out about $146 billion on heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and weed.
Billions of these drug dollars flow south of the Rio Grande and pay the sicarios who commit mass murder as well as lining the pockets of corrupt cops and politicians. But billions also stay inside the United States and are laundered into banks, luxury condos and race horses among other assets.
This huge narco trade shot to the front page as the Trump White House cited drug trafficking, especially of fentanyl, as well as illegal immigration, to justify slapping 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10 percent on goods from China. Those who thought Donald Trump was bluffing with the tariff threats (including myself) looked like we were proven wrong. The action threatened to blow up North America into a major trade war, push Mexico into recession, and drive inflation across the board. Trump conceded that Americans might feel “some pain.”
However, on Monday, it was announced that the tariffs would be delayed for a month. Mexico would sent 10,000 troops to the border to crack down on drugs and migrants and the United States would fight firearms trafficking south, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Trump had acted like a driver speeding head-on into you who then swerves at the last moment after he got what he wanted.
The White House bulletin that had announced tariffs had taken a particularly hard swipe at the Mexican government for narco corruption. As it said:
“Mexican drug trafficking organizations have an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico. The government of Mexico has afforded safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics, which collectively have led to the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of American victims.”
In her video response on Sunday, President Sheinbaum took a pretty measured tone saying, “Mexico does not want confrontation,” but she also promised retaliatory tariffs and said, “We reject categorically the slander of the White House.” Many Mexicans rallied round their president against perceived bullying from their super-power northern neighbor.
However, some of Sheinbaum’s critics blamed corruption of the current government for bringing on the crisis. Journalist Leon Krauze wrote that the accusation was “of such caliber and forcefulness that it makes it inevitable to conclude that they have evidence to support it.”
As almost anybody who has delved deeply into drug trafficking south of the border has found, and I cover extensively at CrashOut, there is massive narco corruption in Mexico. Yet, we also cannot understand the drug trade without looking at the complicity of U.S. businesses and elements of U.S. law enforcement.
Since 2002, well over a hundred agents from Homeland Security, which incorporates the Border Patrol, have been convicted trafficking dope or running undocumented migrants. Elements of the CIA…
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