Breathe
By Adela Navarro Bello
In 2007, in the midst of then President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's war on drugs, Mexico carried out a massive extradition of drug traffickers incarcerated in Mexican prisons, 15 of them to be tried in the United States. At that time, the Merida Initiative was in force, which referred to a binational effort to contain drug cartels, the training of Mexican police and the investment of the U.S. government in the Mexican infrastructure to prosecute criminals.
Mass deportation was the response to a mutual agreement between the governments of both countries, and was delimited within binational strategies. Today, there is no established binational work, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ended the Merida Initiative and, nevertheless, there was a massive deportation: in a single day, 29 people accused of drug trafficking were extradited to the United States.
Donald Trump is barely five weeks into his presidency of the United States, and he has already achieved what no other U.S. president has ever obtained from his Mexican counterpart: The reinforcement of security on Mexico's northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to contain drug trafficking, particularly of fentanyl to that country, and on February 27, the extradition of 29 drug traffickers, among them Rafael Caro Quintero, arrested in 1985 and the main suspect, for the US, of ordering the death of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena.
The context of the massive deportation in the Mexican government headed by Claudia Sheinbaum will depend on what her U.S. counterpart decides: whether or not to maintain the pause she imposed for the 25% increase in tariffs on Mexican products and inputs, as she threatened to do in case the national government did not repress the trafficking of fentanyl from Mexico to the United States.
On Wednesday, February 26, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed that the pause until March 4 is related to the efforts made by the countries, Mexico and Canada, against fentanyl trafficking, and stated: "They have to demonstrate to the president that they have satisfied him in that regard. If they have, he will give them a pause."
Evidently, based on his own statements, Trump is not satisfied, as he announced on Thursday, February 27, that tariffs with an additional 25% for Mexico and Canada would come into effect on March 4. At the same time, a delegation of the Mexican Government, headed by the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, held meetings in Washington, the U.S. capital, to mediate and avoid next week's increase.
While all this was happening, while Trump was reiterating his imposition of higher tariffs, while Marcelo Ebrard was communicating with his peers in the US government, suddenly, the Government of Mexico, through the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection headed by Omar García Harfuch and the Attorney General's Office headed by Alejandro Gertz Manero, jointly reported the extradition to the US of 29 people incarcerated in Mexican prisons, 29 drug traffickers accused of commanding drug production and distribution cartels in Mexico and transshipment to the US, jointly announced the extradition to the U.S. of 29 people incarcerated in Mexican prisons, 29 drug traffickers accused of commanding drug production and distribution cartels in Mexico and transshipment to the United States.
In a brief statement published on the X social network of the federal Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, minutes after the extraditions were reported by the U.S. media and authorities, the Mexican government announced:
"The Attorney General's Office and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection inform: This morning 29 people were transferred to the United States of America who were deprived of their freedom in different penitentiary centers of the country, who were required for their links with criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes.
"The custody, transfer and formal handover of these persons is carried out under institutional protocols with due respect for their fundamental rights, in accordance with our Constitution and the National Security Law, and at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. This action is part of the bilateral coordination, cooperation and reciprocity efforts, within the framework of respect for the sovereignty of both nations".
But it is evident that such action is not a coincidence, nor did the timing of the extraditions coincide in such a way that 29 were given in a single day (lawyers of some inmates allege that their clients are protected against extradition). This is an evident surrender of Mexico to the US, in order to "satisfy" -as the US Secretary of Commerce said- the US President in his fight against the Mexican drug cartels, six of which he gave them the category of terrorists a week ago.
Suddenly, the request to "extradite" to Mexico, or the "repatriation" of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García, announced on Wednesday, February 26, by prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero and President Sheinbaum herself, seemed more like a smokescreen to mitigate the impact of the massive deportation of 29 drug traffickers to the United States. Because under these conditions, it is clear that there is neither substance nor form for the U.S. to hand over one, especially when the Sinaloa Cartel, once ruled by Zambada, is the main accused of trafficking fentanyl that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S.
The problem for Mexico is to wait to see what more the U.S. government will ask for so that its president is satisfied and does not increase tariffs, as he has already said he will do on March 4, and grant a new extension, even for April.
Unfortunately for the country, and for the President, with soldiers and extraditions they are paying for the six years of "Hugs, not bullets", in which Mexican drug traffickers exponentially grew their illicit drug emporium and increased the transfer of drugs to the neighboring country. A policy of the past six years that is costing Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo's government dearly.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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