MEXICO CITY — As talks began between President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador on Monday, one question from analysts on both sides of the border emerged: What’s behind the takedown of some of Mexico’s top drug traffickers?
The López Obrador administration has “dealt some spectacular blows” to three of Mexico’s top criminal organizations, said Arturo Fontes, a security consultant and former top FBI investigator. It’s probably no coincidence that the takedowns occurred in the weeks leading up to the two-day North American leaders summit, he said.
After a short visit to El Paso, Biden arrived in Mexico City on Sunday, and he and López Obrador, also known as AMLO, held bilateral talks Monday. They retreated for dinner with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who arrived in the afternoon.
During Monday’s meeting, the Mexican leader challenged Biden to improve life across the region, telling him that “you hold the key in your hand.”
“This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean,” López Obrador said.
Biden responded by pointing to the billions of dollars that the United States spends in foreign aid around the world, saying that “unfortunately our responsibility just doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.”
“We’re going to discuss how we can further deepen our relationship not only [with] Mexico but [across] the Western Hemisphere,” Biden said. “This includes strengthening our supply chains to make the hemisphere even more competitive. I’m also going to discuss our shared security, including our joint action to address the plague of fentanyl, which has killed 100,000 Americans so far. [We’re also tackling] irregular migration, which I think we’re well on our way to doing. Above all, we are... committed to pursuing a better future, one grounded on peace and prosperity.”
Even with progress on the migration issue, there will be much more to discuss: climate change, manufacturing, trade, the economy and the potential global clout of a more collaborative North America.
Obstacles remain.
Those include figuring out how to staff and secure the 28 crossing points along the Texas-Mexico border and beyond to keep trade flowing without delays. And addressing Mexico’s security problems that impact both sides.
Along the 2,000-mile border, Mexican cities are usually dominated by organized crime, whose power reaches deep into the interior of Mexico.
An estimated 140,000 people have been murdered, mostly by organized crime, under the presidency of López Obrador, whose government is on pace to surpass the number of homicides under his predecessors, Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón, according to Mexico’s National Public Security System.
In recent weeks, a shift, “a beacon of light,” has taken place in Mexican security, according to Fontes and other current and former U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Fontes said he saw “a hopeful sign, not a paradigm shift. … [It’s] more of an equilibrium taking place. And that’s good, especially for the U.S. government” as it pressures Mexico to do more to curtail rampant violence that threatens entire regions.
The U.S. also wants to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 Americans in 2022, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.
The cartel-related violence, Fontes said, also discourages domestic and foreign investors at a time when North America is trying to lure companies away from China and toward Mexico, particularly at the border.
Top instigators of violence
In recent weeks, just before Biden arrived here in Mexico City, three of Mexico’s top instigators of violence and drug trafficking were taken into custody by the administration of López Obrador. That’s in sharp contrast to the “Hugs, not bullets” strategy that he coined at the beginning of his administration.
On Dec. 20 came the arrest of Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, aka “Tony Montana,” brother of the Jalisco New Generation cartel boss, Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho.” That was followed last week by the takedown of Ovidio Guzman, one of the sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, which led to days of violence in the northern state of Sinaloa, resulting in 30 dead and dozens injured.
Over the weekend, in the state of Nuevo Leon, José Rodolfo Villarreal Hernández, known as “El Gato” and a longtime leader of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, was arrested.
El Gato is the alleged mastermind behind the murder of Jesus Guerrero-Chapa, a drug cartel lawyer living in Southlake. Guerrero-Chapa was gunned down after shopping with his wife at Southlake Town Square in May 2013. He was the personal attorney for Osiel Cárdenas, the former head of Mexico’s violent Gulf Cartel and a key U.S. government informant.
“It’s not a coincidence that Biden visits the border and then Mexico City, at a time when there is also more pressure on Mexico, Canada and the United States to move away from China by nearshoring,” or partnering with suppliers and manufacturers within a supply chain located in nearby countries, said Fontes, who is now president of Fontes International Consulting, which provides security advice to international companies.
Fontes said the move on the part of Mexico “has to do with goodwill gestures” but also external pressure on the Mexican government “to clean up its house.” This represents a “significant shift in attitude toward the United States, one from ‘You’re not welcome here’ to more cooperation,” he said.
The focus at the summit Monday dealt with global supply chains, according to López Obrador and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. The thorny issues are too often overlooked by migration and security woes and U.S. domestic politics.
Because of the vexing problem of migration, there is only so much the Biden administration can do to pressure Mexico, at least publicly, said Carlos Bravo Regidor, one of Mexico’s top political commentators. Mexico represents the last barrier between a record-high number of migrants desperately trying to reach the United States.
To retain Mexico’s unwavering cooperation in keeping migrants away from U.S. soil, the Biden administration has treated its second-biggest trading partner with kid gloves, avoiding any major clashes with a populist leader, particularly on issues of human rights violations and what critics call eroding democracy and growing insecurity across Mexico, according to civic groups like Sociedad Civil Mexico and México Evalúa.
‘Toxic issue’ of migration
“Migration has become such a toxic issue in American electoral politics that Biden is willing to let go on a lot of things as long as AMLO’s government helps him keep migration more or less under control,” said Bravo Regidor.
Ahead of the summit, Biden announced a policy shift in migration with Mexico’s blessing. It’s Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.
The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S.
The key is Mexico
The key to the plan is Mexico and its cooperation as an international migration watchdog. Biden administration officials said Mexico has agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants monthly.
“Unfortunately, many of the economic benefits associated with border commerce get overlooked by professional politicians and political action groups that use inflammatory discourse to demonize the border,” said Tom Fullerton, an economist at the University of Texas at El Paso.
But getting violence under control is also key. “Violence is an important factor,” said Jerry Pacheco, president of the Border Industrial Association in Santa Teresa, N.M., a tiny but vibrant border community bordering El Paso.
New Mexico’s appeal has increased as congestion gets worse in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez amid the increase in nearshoring.
As manufacturers leave Asia and make products closer to their final market, the U.S.-Mexico border zone represents a beacon. “There’s no telling how much more foreign investment [Mexico] could be attracting,” Pacheco said, “if there was much less press about it pertaining to drugs, cartels and human smuggling.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
