The Patriot Post® · Cartels Loom Over U.S.-Mexico Relations

In the time it takes you to read this article, it’s most likely that some American somewhere will have died from an overdose of fentanyl.

The math is grim, with 70,000 Americans a year dying from overdosing on the drug. And the blame for its availability is generally placed squarely on two sources: China, which manufactures the base elements, and Mexico, where the elements are combined and from where they are often smuggled into the United States.

In the last six years, fentanyl pill seizures have surged from 50,000 pills in 2017 to more than 115 million pills in 2023, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Online shopping for opioid-style drugs is being blamed for part of the surge, as drugs laced with fentanyl are shipped across the border from unscrupulous operators. Why do we allow this? Someone should ask Joe Biden.

Yet there could be relief on the way. So far this year, there is a convergence of events that only occurs every 12 years: Both Mexico and the U.S. are having a presidential election, as well as balloting for other legislative offices in both countries.

But while border security and illegal immigration are a hot-button issue on this side of the Rio Grande, there’s much more of an omerta on the subject in Mexico, and for good reason: A recent piece in The Washington Post talked about the pressure opposition candidates labor under. “They don’t like it when you talk about the organized crime violence, the extortion, the people forced out of their communities,” said Willy Ochoa, running as a candidate to represent Chiapas state in the Senate. In certain areas, “We receive threats and warnings to not come.”

While U.S. candidates have a measure of security protecting them, it pales in comparison to that of Mexican candidates who can afford it. Ochoa went on a recent campaign trip in a bulletproof SUV accompanied by three truckloads of national guard troops, two state police cars with their lights activated, and security personnel that included one man riding in the back of a pickup truck and tasked with preventing a drone from attacking them. Unfortunately, the cartels still get their way: More than two dozen local candidates have been assassinated during the 2024 campaign, while hundreds of others have been intimidated into dropping out.

We have spoken on previous occasions about the perception that current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (a.k.a. AMLO) was on the take from the cartels, and how he blamed Americans for the fentanyl problem. More recently, AMLO delivered yet another parting shot, as the AP reports: “We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government. Mexico First. Our home comes first.”

That’s all fine and good unless you’re harming your neighbor. “If you are accused of being in the pocket of a drug cartel and not really being committed to stopping cross-border drug trafficking,” opined National Review’s Jim Geraghty back in February, “I don’t think you bolster your reputation by threatening to curtail bilateral cooperation on stopping cross-border drug trafficking.”

But the sad truth is that Mexico’s economy is in the grip of the cartels. As security analyst David Saucedo points out, “The drug cartels provide jobs in regions where the Mexican government can’t provide economic development, they encourage social mobility, and generate revenue through drug sales to balance trade and investment deficits.”

Unfortunately, Claudia Sheinbaum, who represents AMLO’s leftist party in the election, is the prohibitive favorite to win her own six-year term on June 2, so it’s likely we will have more of the same. The Post reported she’s had her own encounter with the cartels, being stopped at a cartel checkpoint by “masked men” and only allowed through after hearing the message, “Remember the poor people.”

If Mexico doesn’t cooperate with this effort, it may be up to us to get tough with it not just by enhancing border security but also by reducing our demand for fentanyl. Just because the Mexican economy depends on smuggling drugs and human trafficking doesn’t mean we have to cooperate.