López Obrador calls the Republicans who propose launching the US Army against the cartels "wimps and interventionists"

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, speaks during his morning press conference, this Friday. Mario Guzman Mario Guzmán (EFE)

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has charged again this Friday against the proposal of a group of Republican congressmen to declare the drug cartels as terrorist organizations and launch the US Army against them.

“That is not the way, the one of threat, the one of submission, the one of invasion, what do these little, interventionist, arrogant think they are!

Mexico is respected," said the Mexican president during his morning press conference.

López Obrador also announced that he has ordered his government consuls in the United States to be more explicit in communicating the achievements of the Mexican Executive's policies against drug trafficking.

Specifically, about fentanyl, the opioid that is causing havoc especially north of the border.

It is not the first time during the week that López Obrador has reacted sharply to the controversial proposal of the Republican congressmen.

Last Thursday he called them "opportunists" when considering they were using Mexico as a punching bag in an electoral key.

“What about fentanyl?

Nothing more than the statements of the opportunistic legislators of the Republican Party, who are taking advantage, lol, of human pain because there is a lot of hypocrisy, ”he said in his morning conference this Thursday.

The declaration of the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations is an old idea of ​​former President Donald Trump, which has been recovered this week by two Republican senators.

The viability of the initiative is remote since the Democratic party controls the lower house.

Faced with the difficulty of moving forward, two other Republican senators, Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz, launched the proposal to use the Army.

The relationship between the two countries has been marked this week by the kidnapping of four US citizens and the murder of two of them in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a situation that has led the United States to ask the Mexican authorities to increase efforts to combat the organizations Mexican criminals.

Regarding the order to the consuls to be more forceful in their communication policy, the president has announced: "On Monday a meeting will be held in Washington, which will be chaired by Marcelo Ebrard with all the Mexican consuls in the United States , to inform about what we are doing in support of the United States so that fentanyl does not arrive ”.

The president has also taken the opportunity to advance the latest official figures in this regard: "In the time that we have been in is when more fentanyl has been confiscated, six tons, and do the math, for every kilo of fentanyl there is a million doses and what we have confiscated are 60,000 kilos.

Nobody has done it."

Bilateral plan against fentanyl

In parallel, the United States ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, stated this Friday that a coalition has been created between the two countries to fight against the distribution of fentanyl.

The diplomat has confirmed that a delegation of US officials arrived this Thursday to meet with the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, among whom was Joe Biden's National Security adviser, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, and the director of the Office of Political White House Drug Enforcement Officer Rahul Gupta.

"The fentanyl case has to be solved with Mexico as partners, with the Mexican security forces and the counterparts in the US, which is why the delegation that came yesterday was so important," said the ambassador.

"They were good meetings, although the work ahead of us is difficult," said Salazar, who has insisted that the fentanyl epidemic is a global issue, since the chemicals reach Mexican ports, such as Manzanillo (Colima). ) and Lázaro Cárdenas (Michoacán), often come from China and India.

On the Mexican side, the Secretary of Public Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, will be in charge of "working to ensure that there is a good effort," said the ambassador.

Among the joint actions that Mexico and the United States are going to develop is an information campaign to raise awareness of the "great danger" posed by fentanyl, which killed 100,000 people in the US last year, according to the ambassador.

In addition, to "strengthen security teams" on both sides of the border.

“We do all of this as partners, which is different from what has happened between Mexico and the US in the past,” the diplomat assured.

Along the same lines, Salazar has emphatically rejected the proposal of the Republicans to send the US army to Mexico: "The US military is not going to solve the problem of the cartels, these proposals do not bring the solutions we need."

The diplomat has considered that the congressman's proposal “has a lot to do with politicking”: “We want to be efficient, work together to find solutions to the insecurity that affects Mexico and the United States in many ways.

That is our priority."

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