Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s executive decree evolving towards the designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would have an impact on Mexico that if there was close coordination between the two governments.
She said Mexico would defend its sovereignty and independence while requesting coordination with the United States following the order signed on Monday.
“We all want to fight drug cartels,” said Sheinbaum during his daily press briefing. The United States “on its territory, the United States on our territory”.
Trump’s order has highlighted Mexican drug cartels and other Latin American criminal groups such as the Venezuelan gang Tren from Aragua and the Gang Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). The order indicates that they “threaten the security of the American people, the security of the United States and the stability of international order in the Western hemisphere”.
The prescription did not list the Mexican cartels by name, but said that the firm’s secretaries would recommend groups for the appointment of terrorist organizations in the next 14 days. It was among a series of decrees that Trump signed on Monday to launch his administration, several of which focus on securing the southern border.
“The cartels have embarked on a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western hemisphere which has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests, but also flooded the United States of deadly drugs, violent criminals and vicious gangs,” said order.
We did not know what the impact was to fight
It came in addition to measures, including the declaration of an emergency on the South American border, the promise to slap 25% prices on Mexico and Canada on February 1 and the end of the use of the CBP One application, which allowed migrants to apply for asylum meetings before reaching the border.
Trump also promised to carry out mass deportations and threatened the military intervention in Mexico to fight against the cartels, something strongly rejected by Sheinbaum.
Many have expressed their concern that the terrorist designation could provide the American justification to take military measures against cartels.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert in the crime organized at Brookings Institution, said that the order could have “huge business implications for migrants”.
Given that the cartels have taken a firm socket on the control of the lucrative trade in smuggling of migrants in recent years, it is practically impossible for migrants and asylum seekers to go through Mexico and other countries in Latin America without paying a kind of costs to cartels.
As they do, Felbab-Brown said it could disqualify them about asylum research.
“Trump can mainly prevent the vast majority of undocumented migrants who try to cross the American border from obtaining asylum,” she said.
Mike Vigil, a former head of foreign operations of the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States, said that he expected that any designation of terrorism has very little impact on daily operations against cartels, because many of the same anti-terrorist powers of the American authorities are already used in counter-narcotic efforts.
“It has already been done. It’s not new,” said Vigil. “It’s the whole political theater and launch a piece of Salami Rassis at the base (by Trump).”
He logistically said that the order would probably allow the United States to seize the assets of groups in the United States, sanction American citizens who do business with terrorist organizations and block the members of these groups to enter the United States
“This will not allow the United States to send troops to Mexico as so many people think simply because people forget that Mexico is a sovereign country and that would be an act of war,” he said.
This decision comes when the cartel’s violence intensified in the Northern States of Mexican after the kidnapping and detention of the working ankle of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada sparked a total war between the rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel. Armed men continue to leave mutilated bodies dispersed through the state and kidnap people even in hospitals.
This is part of a greater changing dynamics in the cartel war in the Latin American nation. Years ago, a handful of criminal organizations led by a few keywords controlled large parts of Mexico. Now, many more factions have violently fought power, because they have become more agile and more difficult to identify.
They used more sophisticated tools such as breathtaking drones, improvised explosive devices and rigged armored vehicles, and have spread to migrant traffic and lawyer. Meanwhile, thousands of Mexican citizens were taken in the cross -fires, having been killed or missing.
