The resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, under pressure from President Felipe Calderon, is bad news for the Obama Administration. There is little doubt that this is a “blow to U.S.-Mexico relations, in that the personal overcame the institutional.” It will damage joint U.S.–Mexico efforts to fight organized crime in Mexico and protect U.S. security at home by turning a common fight against a real enemy into a political contest between national leaders. Since assuming the key ambassadorship in 2009, Pascual played an active role in efforts to …
The March 3 working meeting between Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama loomed as a showdown over Mexico’s sputtering war against crime and increasingly prickly relations between Mexico and the U.S. The encounter, however, took a sunny turn when the two presidents agreed to focus on trade, regulation, and energy issues rather than come to dagger points over Mexico’s seemingly out-of-control crime war. The presidents agreed on a plan to settle a long-standing dispute over a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) commitment to allow a limited …
Today, President Barack Obama will welcome Mexican President Felipe Calderon to the White House. As Senior Latin American Policy Analyst, Ray Walser, aptly described in his latest WebMemo, the atmosphere will be tense given the February 15 murder of U.S. immigration agent Jaime Zapata and recent Wikileaks revelations from the U.S. embassy in Mexico City questioning the coordination and effectiveness of Mexico’s security team dealing escalating violence and bloodshed because of narco-violence. And yet, there are so many critical issues at stake of mutual concern for both countries beyond the …
In December 2006, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon launched a campaign against Mexico’s drug-trafficking organizations. That war continues to rage four years later. In a violent and visible confrontation that began on December 9, 2010, the Mexican federal police delivered a punishing blow against La Familia Michoacana, a dug trafficking cartel with cult-like aspects. Mexican authorities believe Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, a.k.a. “El Chayo,” was killed in the action. Moreno was the “Family’s” second top commander. In the last year, Arturo Beltran Leyva, Edgar Valdez Villareal (a.k.a. “La Barbie”), and Antonio Ezequiel …
The cold blooded murder of 72 illegal migrants by members of Mexico’s notorious Zeta cartel in the state of Tamaulipas is another stark and gruesome reminder of the current criminal and drug-related turmoil in Mexico. According to press reports the victims came from Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador. The lone survivor stated the migrants were killed for failing to pay off their Mexican captors. This massacre runs against the conventional narrative that the escalating violence in Mexico primarily pits drug trafficker-against-drug trafficker. It shows the significant overlap between transnational …
While Mexico’s drug cartel violence continues to mount and the recent sophisticated car bombing in Ciudad Juarez indicate possible foreign assistance to the drug lords, the Obama Administration received a less than stellar grade from the Government Accounting Office on its handling of delivery of help to the embattled Mexicans. The latest report from the Government Accounting Office presented in Congress on July 21 reported: The pace of delivery of the supplies had picked up, the Washington Post, summarized, with the U.S. government providing five Bell helicopters, biometric equipment, forensics …
The senseless daylight murders of Lesley A. Enriquez, an American employee in the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez, her U.S. citizen husband, Arthur Redelfs, and a Mexican employee of the Consulate General, Jorge Salcido sends a sobering signal to Washington that Mexico’s drug violence is evolving in even more dangerous directions, especially if it is proven that the U.S. government employees were deliberately targeted by drug gunmen. Clearly the perpetrators of these and other crimes believe murder, terror, and fear will allow them to prevail against the Government of …
Answer: they both want to punish Colombia. Venezuela’s authoritarian, anti-American President Chavez claims Colombia threatens his national security, runs around too much with the “Empire,” [the U.S.], and will one day provoke a war with Venezuela. For these reasons, he aims to punish Colombia by cutting off trade and undermining economic security in Colombia and Venezuela. Being the economic kingpin of Venezuela, he can make it happen. Chavez’s latest attack on Colombia and President Uribe comes just as the U.S. and Colombia move toward agreement on how to operate regular …
It’s said that Albert Einstein once defined insanity as repeating a given course of action and expecting different results. With the return of a large number of Mexican congressional seats to the former ruling party, the PRI, it would appear that Mexico’s citizens have (by Einstein’s standards) gone insane. Drug wars, swine flu, earthquakes, and a staggering economy have not made for an easy few months for the citizens of Mexico. While it’s hard to blame anyone for an earthquake or the outbreak of an illness, it’s certainly appropriate to blame …
In a recent meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) told Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division within the Justice Department, that it was “extremely embarrassing that Mexico has been as kind to us.” According to Delegate Norton, the U.S. bears primary responsibility for the armed lawlessness of Mexico’s drug cartels. From the Mexican perspective, Delegate Norton argued the U.S. is “essentially shipping down arms to kill my people”. If she were Mexican, she “would have been …
