Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s enemy, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State for the United States Department of State in charge of foreign relations and a fierce critic of the dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, arrived in Mexico last night to set the terms of a new security agreement with Claudia Sheinbaum’s government.
He did so hours after the US military carried out “a lethal attack” that left 11 dead in international waters in the Caribbean. Rubio launched an attack against a ship that had reportedly departed Venezuela “transporting illegal narcotics bound for the United States.”
Rubio said after the attack, and before departing for Mexico, that his administration would use “the full power of the Americas to confront and eradicate” the drug cartels. This was the preamble to the meeting he will hold with Sheinbaum today, amid an unprecedented context of diplomatic tensions.
Since his time as a senator, Rubio has accused López Obrador of having handed over Mexican territory to organized crime. He insisted that the cartel issue should be a U.S. national security priority. He accused AMLO of having received money from organized crime during his presidential campaigns and of supporting “tyrants in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.”
When López Obrador did not attend the 2022 Summit of the Americas because the latter three countries had not been invited, Rubio boasted: “I am glad to see that the Mexican president, who has handed over sections of his country to drug cartels and is an apologist for tyranny in Cuba, a murderous dictator in Nicaragua, and a drug trafficker in Venezuela, will not be in the United States,” he said.
López Obrador responded that if he had evidence that he had been financed by drug traffickers, he should present it. Perhaps he did not suspect that Rubio would become one of the most powerful officials in Trump’s cabinet. Since taking office, the secretary has gathered information about the advance of the cartels and their collusion with the Mexican government. Hence the rumor about the existence of a “Marco Rubio list,” which could be reported in the coming days, and which includes politicians and businessmen linked to drug trafficking.
Rubio was the architect of the designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which gave his administration the legal framework to carry out interventionist actions with the use of military force. Under that designation were the Sinaloa Cartel, which the secretary is targeting as the main importer of fentanyl, and five other criminal groups.
Rubio has said that the cartels have operational control of huge swathes of the border. He has said that “unfortunately, we know that a large part of Mexican territory is controlled by the cartels.” He has referred to the “very dangerous level of corruption in the judicial system.” He has said that the expulsion of drug traffickers during Sheinbaum’s administration is not enough.
He has said that in several regions of Mexico, the cartels are not only more powerful than the government: he has said that in some parts of Mexico, they are the government.
Rubio has already toured Latin America twice. He left his visit to Mexico for his third trip. Coincidences rarely exist: he is making this visit after Mexico’s oldest and most powerful drug trafficker, El Mayo Zambada, has reached an agreement with his government. He arrives armed with information that Ovidio Guzmán and Joaquín Guzmán López have handed over to the United States in search of benefits. He arrives with the hard drive of drug trafficking in Mexico and a tremendously bulging briefcase.
With the operation of warships in areas near the border with Mexico. With the presence of spy planes flying over Mexican territory. With the version, denied by the Sheinbaum administration, that an “Operation Doorman” has been launched on the border by the DEA. With Trump’s offer to “help,” through the use of his military, destroy the cartels.
But it comes especially after having built a case against the government that allowed the flow of fentanyl into the United States, and which is held responsible for the deaths of 70,000 Americans each year: an average of 96 every day.
Rubio has publicly accused López Obrador of having allowed and facilitated all of this through his “hugs, not bullets” policy and through agreements made with drug traffickers.
Source: eluniversal
