Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said that more needs to be done to convince the government of Mexico to oppose the threat of cartels. On June 26, the senators and their colleagues addressed the matter head on in a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Louise Yellen and Secretary of State Antony John Blinken.
“We urge the Biden Administration to use expanded sanctions authority as leverage and adopt a more assertive approach,” Senators Blackburn, Hagerty, and colleagues wrote in their letter. “This includes imposing sanctions and visa bans targeting Mexican officials starting at the state and local level of government who directly support or enable the cartels, until López Obrador’s Administration resumes support for joint operations, increases intelligence sharing, and escalates pressure against the cartels and their enablers in government.”
According to a June 26 press release from Blackburn's office, Senators Blackburn and Hagerty took the lead in composing a letter, co-signed by Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL.), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and John Barrasso (R-WY), urging the Biden Administration to employ all available diplomatic resources to convince the Mexican government to fight against the drug cartel threat.
The press release reports that the level of anti-narcotics cooperation between the United States and Mexico has hit a historic low, specifically due to Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador's attempts to undo this cooperation. The lawmakers argued that taking measures, such as imposing sanctions on "corrupt" government officials in Mexico who facilitate cartel activities, would discourage future investments in those regions and impose tangible consequences on Mexico for its reluctance to confront the cartels who continue to run their drug operations.
The US continues to struggle with a fentanyl crisis, and has already seized 19,000 lbs. at the southern border this fiscal year, compared to 14,000 lbs. in FY 2022 and 10,000 lbs. in FY 2021, as reported by Fox News. Fentanyl, which can be deadly even in small doses, is mainly produced in Mexico with the help of Chinese manufacturers, according to the article. However, President Obrador said the US is at fault for the crisis and that Mexico does not make fentanyl. He said, "Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl. Why don't they [the United States] take care of their problem of social decay?"
“President López Obrador’s unwillingness to act against the cartels and the breakdown in key lines of effort for counter-narcotics cooperation pose a major and growing threat to the safety and security of the American people,” the senators added in their letter. “In addition to controlling up to 40 percent of Mexican territory, the cartels also control the primary trafficking corridors into the United States and facilitate the passage of a record number of illegal aliens into our country and almost all of the illicit drugs coming across our border.”
According to Fox News, Sec. Blinken has agreed that the cartels have control over portions of Mexico and has said that the State Department would consider qualifying the cartels as terrorist organizations.
