Former US Attorney General William Barr said in an article in The Wall Street Journal that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador likes to “zealously invoke Mexico’s sovereignty to stop Americans from taking action, while handing over sovereignty to the narcoterrorists”.
Barr responded to an article by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Marcelo Ebrard, on March 11.
He mentioned that Ebrard “cites my pressure to cooperate against the cartels in 2019 and 2020. I argued then, as now, that cartels can be effectively dismantled if the US and Mexico come together in an all-out campaign, using all the tools we have.”
The former prosecutor argued that the head of the SRE “ignores the obstacles to real progress. First, the control of the cartels over Mexico is so strong that Mexico lacks the ability to free itself from its domination.”
This powerlessness is due in large part to the cartels’ success in corrupting the Mexican government at all levels. Breaking free will require the help of the United States inside Mexico, hopefully working cooperatively with the Mexicans,” he noted.
“He wants to embrace them, not fight them,” Barr says of AMLO and the cartels. He also criticized that López Obrador “has no interest in seriously confronting the cartels and will not allow the US to do so. He wants to ’embrace’ them.”Don’t fight with them.”
The former US prosecutor lashed out that “only after (former) President Trump threatened to designate the cartels as terrorists, did AMLO make half-hearted gestures of cooperation, for show.
“Those stopped abruptly when Mr. Trump lost his re-election. AMLO’s plan: if the cartels are left free to traffic drugs to the US they will be more peaceful inside Mexico. That policy has failed.”
He added that “Mr. Ebrard’s letter reflects AMLO’s classic obfuscations” and that “concrete and sustained measures” are not taken.
He criticized that López Obrador “zealously invokes the sovereignty of Mexico to prevent the Americans from taking action, while handing over sovereignty to the narcoterrorists.”
He also mentioned that the demand for drugs in Mexico does not explain the reason why organized crime exists on Mexican soil, because otherwise, Canada would also experience high levels of crime.
“He justifies inaction by blaming the existence of the cartels on the US demand for drugs, even though somehow this demand has not turned Canada into a narco-state, nor has it prevented Colombia from breaking free. Nor is there the US demand for the murder in mass caused by fentanyl,” he said.
He concluded: “It is the Mexican government that allows cartels to flourish. Efforts to reduce demand can help in the long run, but they are not a substitute for decisive steps to reduce killing.”