In a memorandum sent to Congress this Wednesday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has once again pointed to Mexico as one of the most important countries in the production and transit chain of drugs to the United States.
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“Canada and Mexico must do much more to stop the flow of lethal drugs into our country,” he said. Trump acknowledges the effort of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government in security matters, but demands more commitment.
Coinciding with the celebrations for Mexico’s Independence Cry, in which Sheinbaum has claimed the defense of national sovereignty, Trump sent her a message: she must “arrest and prosecute the numerous corrupt public officials who have collaborated with the cartels and betrayed the security and sovereignty of their own country.”
The document is a compilation of what Trump considers threats, tasks done and to be done by different countries around the world, from South America to Asia, in the fight against drug trafficking and against the organizations that sustain the business, with violence involved.
Mexico appears at the beginning of the list, along with Canada, according to the Republican’s view, who also dedicates phrases to the rest of the countries in the region, many of great importance in the logistical chain of cocaine, a drug that depends on the cultivation of the coca plant, which grows in the mountains of Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia.
But it is Canada and especially Mexico, its neighbors, that have received the most comments. “We recognize the work of the administration of Mexican President [Claudia] Sheinbaum, for the seizure of larger volumes of drugs, the dismantling of clandestine laboratories, and the deployment of additional military and police resources on our shared border,” Trump says. “Furthermore, security cooperation between the United States and Mexico has helped eliminate some of the most notorious cartel leaders in the world, including [Nemesio Oseguera, alias] El Mencho,” he adds.
Trump continues. “Mexico must take additional measures, however, against the narco-terrorist organizations that dominate vast areas of its territory and continue to threaten the American people,” he points out.
“Mexico needs to strengthen the integrity of supply chains, encouraging greater participation from the private industry and significantly increasing inspections at its ports of entry,” he argues, referring to customs. “Mexico’s current investments in its security forces are insufficient to sustain and expand its campaigns against narco-terrorists, their financing, and their criminal networks,” he concludes.
In addition to Mexico, Trump also includes in the list of transit countries the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the usual route for cocaine traffickers. Haiti, with much of the country taken over by criminal gangs, the Dominican Republic, neighboring island, Jamaica, and Belize accompany the previous ones, key in the same logistical chain.
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