Drug War Cooperation Between the U.S. And Mexico Is at Its Lowest Point in Decades. What Went Wrong? Ken Dilanian - NBC News
go to original March 27, 2023

President of Mexico denies fentanyl is produced or consumed in country  (CBS News)

It was yet another fraught moment in a tumultuous relationship, and it didn’t end well.

Senior Biden administration officials were heading to Mexico City this month for pre-arranged talks about the fentanyl crisis as the news unfolded that drug cartel gunmen had kidnapped four Americans in Mexico, two of whom were shot dead.

But after Mexican officials quickly found and retrieved the surviving Americans — with U.S. help — the Biden officials were hopeful they could still emerge from the fentanyl meeting with something good to announce.

It wasn’t to be. Even before the talks began, Mexico’s president upended them. Andrés Manuel López Obrador stood before television cameras to proclaim that fentanyl is America’s problem and falsely stated that none of the dangerous drug is produced in Mexico.



Current and former U.S. officials say the bizarre episode is symptomatic of just how badly the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated in what used to be called the drug war — at the precise moment when joint action is most needed.

“There’s really been minimal to nonexistent law enforcement cooperation,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a drug-trafficking expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The Mexican government has not been allowing joint raids or even observation by U.S. law enforcement. Now this blatantly false statement by [Mexico’s] president.”

Matthew Donahue, who retired last year after three decades with the Drug Enforcement Administration, agreed that cooperation was “nonexistent” and added that the biggest problem is corruption in Mexico “and how it has infiltrated many levels of their government.”

“This is the worst it has ever been in Mexico,” he said. “What is frustrating is that we know where the traffickers are,” but the U.S. government has been unable to persuade Mexico to act, “so all that operational intelligence gathering is wasted.”

Read the rest at NBC News

Related: Mexico’s President Blames U.S. Fentanyl Crisis on “Lack of Love, of Brotherhood, of Hugs” (CBS News)

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