Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insists almost daily that there is no rupture with the government of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. But the data she releases each week reveals that the “hugs, not bullets” policy appears to be coming to an end.
After more than a decade of failure and violence in the war on drugs declared by President Felipe Calderón in 2006, AMLO came to power in 2018 with the idea that, instead of fighting organized crime, it was more appropriate to address the causes of violence, such as poverty and lack of opportunity, and promote dialogue between established power groups.
Sheinbaum says that this line is still valid, but immediately announces results that speak otherwise: tons of drugs seized, arrests, laboratories bombed. Two, three, four times what was reported in the previous six-year term.
“We’re confiscating drugs in Mexico, preventing them from crossing to the other side,” the president commented at a recent press conference. “That means we’re doing something right, right?” she wondered.
For any Mexican president, anti-drug policy represents an enormous challenge because, no matter how sovereign they claim to be, part of it is shaped by the United States, the powerful northern neighbor that buys 80% of Mexican exports and, with just that one piece of information among many others, can limit Mexico’s room for maneuver.
If AMLO previously attempted—and many would say failed—a change in strategy toward crime, today Sheinbaum seems to have no choice but to return to the iron fist of the past.
Photo caption: Although Mexico appears not to be suffering from a fentanyl consumption crisis, Sheinbaum has launched a prevention campaign. In fact, the government has not released data on national consumption since 2016.
Results amid negotiations
Much of the shift in anti-drug policy has to do with the arrival of Omar García Harfuch, the former police officer who, during Sheinbaum’s mayoralty in Mexico City, managed to reduce homicides in the capital and improve the sense of insecurity.
Last week, Harfuch announced his ministry’s consolidated results: since October 1, he reported, 24,652 people have been arrested for high-impact crimes, 1,150 illicit drug labs have been dismantled, and 178 tons of narcotics have been seized, including more than 3 million fentanyl pills, the opioid that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the United States.
Anti-drug policy, then, is the responsibility of the head of security, who also announced the seizure of 12,736 firearms and has militarized the northern border in an effort to prevent the illegal crossing of migrants, which has seen its largest reduction in decades.
But if part of this is due to Harfuch’s presence, much is also attributed to the pressure exerted by Donald Trump, who uses threats of tariffs on imports, deportation of Mexican migrants, or taxes on their remittances to achieve what he obsesses over: stopping migration and fentanyl trafficking.
That pressure made headlines again on Thursday, when the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three Mexican financial entities for allegedly facilitating cartels’ purchase of fentanyl precursors in China and laundering illegal money.
Sheinbaum rejected the sanctions, demanded evidence of the illicit activities, and reiterated: “We coordinate, we collaborate, but we do not subordinate ourselves. Mexico is a great country, and the relationship with the U.S. is one of equals, not subservience. We are no one’s piñata.”
That same Thursday, however, the National Banking and Securities Commission announced the intervention of two sanctioned banks with the goal of renewing their management, investigating what happened, and protecting public assets.
Changes with Limited Power
Sheinbaum, who is enormously popular and whose party controls the legislative and judicial branches, is trying to align her interests with Trump’s; attacking money laundering, for example, or pursuing drug traffickers.
“It’s a real crusade, but it’s based on a fragile situation,” warns David Saucedo, a consultant and security expert, “because the security budget hasn’t been increased, because a portion of the military distrusts Harfuch, because the cartels are stronger than ever, and because the institutions are riddled with corruption.”
Saucedo adds: “As long as there’s demand for drugs in the United States, it’s very difficult for the fight against crime in Mexico to have any impact, because you can double or triple seizures, but it will still be a marginal percentage, less than 10%, of the total exported by traffickers.”
In February, when the negotiations were just beginning, Trump praised Sheinbaum for “achieving” that Mexico not be a drug-consuming country with prevention campaigns. And he announced that he would follow suit: “We’re going to spend billions of dollars explaining how bad drugs are.”
But neither Trump has launched prevention campaigns, nor has Sheinbaum been able to implement her true anti-drug policy. One, for example, like the one she developed in the capital’s mayor’s office, based on the decriminalization of addictions and the reduction of consumption through education.
“What was done in the city was very interesting; it had a health focus and responded to her profile as a scientist,” says Zara Snapp, activist and drug policy expert. “But now Sheinbaum faces two impediments: AMLO’s legacy of a prohibitionist policy toward consumption, and Trump, who is calling for a return to militarization.”
The expert adds: “They can announce more and more seizures, but we know that this has a very marginal impact on illegal consumption and leads us to the scientifically incorrect diagnosis that you can eradicate consumption with punitive actions.”
There are signs that Mexico is ending its “hugs, not bullets” policy, but instead of an innovative strategy focused on health, Trump seems to have forced a return to the “war on drugs.”
Although Sheinbaum says almost daily that the war “will not return.”
Source: bbc
