“By what right do you investigate a legal, legitimately constituted government of an independent country?
Is there a world government?
What, isn't each country independent and sovereign?
These were just some of the points that the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, made to the White House in his
morning
conference last Thursday.
By that point, the president had already dedicated more than an hour to eviscerating a request for comments sent by
The New York Times
, which investigated alleged contributions from drug traffickers to his 2018 campaign. The main source of the report was a DEA investigation. (the US anti-narcotics agency) that never became a formal accusation and the statements of at least three informants, who claimed that they gave millions of dollars to members of López Obrador's inner circle and children.
Before, the presidents were like employees of foreign governments, obedient, busy, submissive and they got used to not respecting our independence, our sovereignty.
“In the end, the investigation was closed after US authorities recognized that it could provoke a diplomatic conflict with Mexico.
To a large extent, the decision was made after the reaction of the Mexican Government when the United States arrested General Salvador Cienfuegos in 2020," reads the questionnaire sent by the American newspaper and that López Obrador revealed before the publication came out.
“I mean, they were afraid of us, because Mexico is respected.
“All of that is false, completely false,” the president reproached, visibly upset.
It was at least the fifth journalistic publication in two months about links between organized crime and its closest collaborators.
In the shadow of the media scandal and the president's controversial reaction, which sparked an ex officio investigation for exposing the personal data of the American newspaper's correspondent in Mexico, the episode was the last link in a long chain of frictions and disagreements between the Mexican Government and the United States agencies operating in Mexico, in general, and the DEA, in particular.
“The DEA is a headache in Mexico.
It is not new, it has been going on for a long time,” declared Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the first five years of the López Obrador Administration, on Thursday.
The former foreign minister did not hesitate to describe the latest wave of leaks as “revenge by the DEA” for the restrictions that have been imposed on them in the Latin American country and stated that “the objective is to call into question the political authority of the president of Mexico.”
The diagnosis of four specialists consulted by EL PAÍS does not differ, in general terms, from what Ebrard proposed.
“It is a direct message from the DEA to López Obrador,” says political analyst Leonardo Curzio.
"They are telling you 'we also want to cover you up, you are still a very powerful president and now we can't, but here are the reports to remind you that you are mortal, that you will no longer be president and that bills will be collected," he ditches. the academic from the UNAM North American Research Center.
The history of turbulence between López Obrador and the DEA inevitably goes through the
Cienfuegos case
.
Just minutes before Enrique Peña Nieto's Secretary of Defense was detained at the Los Angeles airport, the then US ambassador, Christopher Landau, contacted Ebrard to notify him that the arrest was a matter of time and that there had been a drug trafficking case against the general “based on DEA accusations.”
This is what the president narrates in his book
From Him Halfway
and is corroborated by a former Foreign Affairs official.
“Regardless of the background, I did not accept from the outset the way they informed us,” López Obrador wrote.
“I asked the Secretary of Foreign Affairs to convey to the highest level, including the Secretary of State and the attorney general of that country, my annoyance, as a representative of the Mexican State, for the treatment received.”
“Ebrard's first reaction was to say: 'We hope they have a case, that they have evidence, because if not there will be problems for the bilateral relationship,' says the former official, who speaks on condition that his name not be revealed.
The arrest was on Thursday, October 15, 2020, two weeks before the presidential elections in the United States.
A day later, however, López Obrador gave credence to the accusations against Cienfuegos.
“This is an unequivocal example of the decomposition of the regime, of how the public service in the country was degraded during the neoliberal period,” he commented.
Behind the scenes, Mexico asked the United States to review the judicial file and a team from the Foreign Ministry dedicated itself that weekend to reviewing whether, in fact, “there was a case” against the general.
“Three days later [Ebrard] looked for me to present his notes to me;
“I read them, asked several questions and came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of anything and that they had fabricated the accusation,” wrote the president, who from that moment on changed his speech.
On Friday he compared Cienfuegos to Genaro García Luna, Felipe Calderón's Secretary of Public Security and then arrested for drug trafficking in the United States. On Monday he asked for restraint: "Not all the Armed Forces should be blamed and we have to take care of an institution as important as the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena)”.
By November, Cienfuegos was repatriated to Mexico and in January he was exonerated of the crimes he was accused of in the United States.
The then attorney general, William Barr, confessed in his memoirs that “the
Cienfuegos case
was not worth destroying any prospect of broader cooperation with the Mexicans.”
“Somehow, they make him see the implications that this has for the Mexican Army and for the continuity of its own security policy, and he backs away,” says Curzio.
One year after the arrest, the National Guard had been created, entrusted to the Sedena as the main commitment of this Government in matters of Public Security.
“What happened in Cienfuegos was a disaster,” says the former foreign official.
“From that moment on, the DEA became a hindrance to the bilateral relationship and the spaces for cooperation were reduced,” he adds.
In January 2021, a reform to the National Security Law came into force to regulate the activities of “foreign agents” in Mexico, oblige them to deliver periodic reports and subject them to sanctions for “violating legal provisions that prohibit them from exercising functions reserved for the Mexican authorities.”
The message to the DEA was completed with the closure in April of an agency intelligence unit in Mexico City that had operated since the 1990s.
“To put it colloquially, it tasted like burnt horn, that is, hell,” Curzio ditches.
For the specialist, the
timing
of the Cienfuegos scandal was not a coincidence, weeks before Americans went to the polls.
“The DEA needs its own story that gives it political and budgetary space to justify to the Government, Congress and public opinion of the United States why the fight against drugs has not improved,” he adds.
“The DEA's pattern is that it has always gone it alone.
We have four decades in which he attacks the president of Mexico one day and the next.
It has never changed,” comments Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the Center for Mexico-United States Studies at the University of California in San Diego.
The agency arrived in Mexico in the mid-seventies, but the breaking point in its relationship with Mexican authorities was in 1985 with the torture and murder of agent Enrique
Kiki
Camarena at the hands of drug traffickers in Guadalajara.
“From that moment on, the DEA went to the mountains, like goats, and adopted an almost feudal and personal agenda with Mexico, without it being necessarily anchored in the rest of the foreign policy priorities of the United States,” says Arturo. Sarukhán, Mexican ambassador to the United States during the Calderón Government.
Sarukhán, however, considers that “López Obrador is the author of his own clash with the DEA” by destroying the Mérida Initiative, a bilateral security cooperation agreement signed in that Administration.
“What the president never understood is that the Mérida Initiative was not about financing or the exchange of equipment or weapons, it was a straitjacket for US agencies,” he comments.
From his perspective, what this mechanism did was establish an institutional path for collaboration between both Governments, given the plethora of interests that mark the bilateral relationship: those of the DEA, those of the CIA, those of the Pentagon, those of the Department of State, those of the Embassy and those of their own Mexican counterparts.
Mexico and the United States are not monolithic entities, there are philias and phobias, there is distrust in key instances and there are unresolved issues that serve as levers for negotiation and pressure, specialists agree.
Sarukhán warns that now “the disorder” has returned.
It was like that with Cienfuegos and it was like that in this last wave of leaks.
“They are signs that the relationship in Security is not flowing and that it is bursting,” says the former ambassador.
“Cooperation is what generates trust, not the other way around,” he adds.
Paradoxically, it is this complexity that surrounds the bilateral relationship that has largely saved it.
He also explains that López Obrador can discredit the DEA in public or clash with the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and at the same time defend the good relationship that he has with the Government of Joe Biden.
The other part has to do with the political context of the United States.
“The immigration crisis has been a kind of kryptonite for Biden,” says Fernández de Castro.
While Democrats have to explain the ins and outs of the crisis, Republicans can simplify the message and turn it into a political weapon.
“The Republicans' political narrative has been impeccable, their message to conservative voters is 'they are invading us,'” he adds.
Sarukhán affirms that the US president's line to government agencies regarding Mexico, a key ally in containing immigration, is clear: "Don't piss off AMLO."
Fernández de Castro reaffirms the idea: “For this reason, López Obrador feels very confident in his relationship with Biden.”
Despite the departure of Donald Trump and the deep differences with his successor, there are two United States priorities that have remained: migration and combating fentanyl trafficking.
Biden's commitment to prioritizing border control affects those who work in the so-called war on drugs, the DEA, which sees Mexico as a crucial territory for its operations.
In February of last year, Anne Milgram, its director, stated in Congress that it is necessary for the Mexican Government to “do more.”
In July, she declared that fentanyl is produced “en masse” in Mexican territory.
And for months she has insisted that the two main sources of the fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of people each year in that country are the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
The López Obrador Administration, which interprets the accusations as diplomatic pressure, goes to the other extreme and insists that “fentanyl is not produced in Mexico.”
The stagnation in Security has been going on for years and was evident during the Peña Nieto Government, in which the extraditions of drug lords fell to a minimum.
Fernández de Castro, Calderón's advisor for the United States, acknowledges that there were not as many disagreements with the United States security agencies during that Administration because the idea that it was necessary to go against the leaders of criminal organizations was an accepted reality on both sides. of the border.
But the idea that the Government of Mexico does not
de facto
control large parts of its territory and that there are infiltrations of organized crime in the different government orders, although it has proven to be true, has also been instrumental for US claims, especially at the time. of elections in the US. “For them it is absolutely irrelevant whether the PAN, the PRI or Morena govern, the only thing that matters to them is achieving their institutional objectives, which go beyond the interests of the Government in power,” comments Curzio.
The latest crash occurs in the week that marks one year since García Luna was found guilty in New York.
Then, members of the Mexican opposition complained about the absence of documentary evidence during the trial, which was based mainly on the testimony of informants.
López Obrador still uses the case as a political banner to attack his opponents, although now the roles have been reversed: the opposition calls him “narco-president” and the Government demands material evidence.
However, the very matter of Calderón's former secretary threatens to become indigestible for the president, by giving credibility to the accusations based in the United States.
The case against Cienfuegos did not go to court due to political pressure, recognized by the US attorney general himself, the same reason why the investigations against his close circle did not continue, according to
The New York Times
.
In fact, the DEA has followed the trail of the last three Administrations in Mexico, despite the discomfort and problems that this has caused for the United States Governments.
It is also a reflection of how costly the failure of its own justice system to resolve these cases has been for Mexico and that they are punished in another country, where the rules are completely different.
“The relationship is stagnant and we greatly allow a negligent López Obrador to believe the two issues that most impact both countries,” says Fernández de Castro.
Recent events show that “the muscle tone of the bilateral agenda is enormously worrying,” as well as the conditions with which the next presidents of Mexico and the United States will have to navigate starting next year, according to Sarukhán.
“All the paths of the Republican campaign pass through the border with Mexico, whether it is migration or fentanyl, in the Republican narrative that is the true national security challenge, it is not China, it is not Russia, it is not what is happening in the Middle East ”, assures the former ambassador.
“All the elements for a muscular and confrontational story, under the idea that 'Mexico needs to be put in order' and that there is a 'narco-government' are in place, we will have to see,” says Curzio about a possible return of Trump.
Mexico will go to the polls on June 2 and the United States on November 5.
“In no way, they cannot affect, if we are obliged to maintain good relations with the United States Government,” López Obrador said while reading the American newspaper's questionnaire.
The complaint by his son about the leak of his phone, just two days after he did the same, shows that the media scandal is far from being over.
Regarding whether the investigation affects trust between both governments, the president said: “The course will tell that.”
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