Mexico is one of the most violent places on the planet. For the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, it is the fault of the United States. More specifically, from the American-based arms industry that produces most of the arsenal that falls into the hands of Mexican bandits. So he took the initiative to ask for a hefty compensation. He filed a $10 billion lawsuit against companies in the industry. The case was obviously rejected by the American Justice. But AMLO doesn’t give up. He used his chancellor Marcelo Ebrard to announce that he will appeal and that he will not give up charging the Americans’ bill. Last year, Mexico recorded 34 a thousand homicides.
Although it may seem, AMLO is not an idiot. Not even. The strategy of blaming American guns works for its domestic supporters and for activism on the north side of the border. On both fronts, he shifts the focus away from the roots of violence in his country. AMLO knows very well that guns are not the cause, but a consequence of the Mexican tragedy that has its origins in the drug trade. AMLO knows very well – you can swear – that the combination of a corrupt and complacent state with crime right next to the largest economy on the planet (and not by chance the largest consumer market for cocaine) has made Mexico the largest drug hub in the world. world.
Something close to 100% of the cocaine that arrives in the United States or passes through Mexico, or is distributed through trafficking networks controlled by Mexican cartels. And not just cocaine. Marijuana, heroin and opioids originating from the four corners of the world stop in Mexico before arriving in the United States.
It’s not about playing the game of who or where people die the most, but last year more than 100 thousand Americans died of overdose. One in five deaths was caused by cocaine use. More than half of the deaths tested positive for fentanyl – a synthetic opioid – which is also trafficked from Mexico.
But AMLO thinks Mexico’s problem is the arms industry in the United States.
The Mexican president, who is no fool, knows very well where the drugs that flow into his country come from to flood the United States and fill the pockets of drug cartels. Fortune that is not only used to buy weapons, but also influence, power and politicians.
Cocaine comes from Colombian, Peruvian and Bolivian traffickers, but AMLO prefers to ignore it. Part of it first rests in Venezuela and Cuba, before landing on Mexican soil. Both regimes live in the heart of the Mexican president, so there is no chance of him complaining.
Drug cartels control slices of Mexican territory, terrorize citizens, command human trafficking towards the United States, maintaining a network of recruiters and coyotes that collects fortunes from immigrants who, in many cases, are fleeing the environments of primal violence implanted by the cartels in Mexico and by Central American gangs.
It is It is true that arms smuggling is a problem to be tackled. But it only exists because the drug trade and Mexico’s bankruptcy against the cartels created the conditions for it to exist. Therefore, diverting the focus of the problem, in addition to cheap populism, seems to be a strategy for those who want to show that the drug dealer is also a victim. One of the artifices of the drug liberalization lobby, which bets on an end to violence with the release of production, sale and consumption.
The Mexican innovation of wanting to sue arms manufacturers could make some sense if it was accompanied by a set of other international actions. For example, a request for compensation addressed to the Confederations of Coca Producers of Bolivia, whose production is mostly destined for trafficking. The organization’s president is former president Evo Morales, a friend and brother of AMLO. It would also take a billion-dollar bill from the regime of Nicolás Maduro, which, since the time of Hugo Chávez, has used the state apparatus to allow tons and tons of drugs to be shipped to Mexico.
But of course this is nonsense. AMLO knows very well what he does.
