{"id":8091,"date":"2023-03-24T16:38:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T20:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8091"},"modified":"2023-03-24T16:38:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T20:38:04","slug":"mexican-president-pushes-back-on-u-s-criticism-on-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8091","title":{"rendered":"Mexican President Pushes Back on U.S. Criticism on Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador stands at the National Palace during a ceremony in Mexico City, Sept. 20, 2022. Mexico\u2019s president on Friday, March 24, 2023 angrily rejected comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Mexican government has lost control of parts of the country. (AP Photo\/Marco Ugarte, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mexico\u2019s president on Friday angrily rejected comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Mexican government has lost control over parts of the country.<\/p>\n

However, President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador acknowledged that Mexican cartels had placed people inside Mexico\u2019s drug regulatory agency to approve imports of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Blinken said \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say yes\u201d when asked at a Senate hearing whether drug cartels control parts of Mexico.<\/p>\n

The Mexican president responded to those comments at his morning press briefing Friday, saying, \u201cThat is false, it\u2019s not true. … There is nowhere in the nation\u2019s territory where authorities are not present.\u201d<\/p>\n

But L\u00f3pez Obrador acknowledged that cartels had stretched their tentacles into the Mexican government\u2019s federal drug regulatory agency, known by its initials in Spanish as Cofepris.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey even had representatives in Cofepris, people lobbying inside Cofepris,\u201d the president said, adding that some officials have been charged in that case.<\/p>\n

Mexican cartels have imported fentanyl precursors under false names or as mislabeled products, with help from inside the regulatory agency. They then process it into fentanyl<\/a>, press it into counterfeit pills made to look like oxycodone, Xanax or Percocet and smuggle it into the United States, where the drug has caused more than 70,000 overdose deaths per year.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador also pushed back against comments by Blinken suggesting that Mexico\u2019s takeover of a port owned by a U.S. firm would hurt investment in Mexico. Last week, Mexican police seized a cargo terminal<\/a> owned by the Alabama-based construction materials company Vulcan Materials.<\/p>\n

Speaking before legislators, Blinken said \u201cI am very concerned about that situation\u201d and \u201cthe potential for a case like this to have a chilling effect … on further investment or engagement by our companies as they see what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador claimed he was defending Mexico\u2019s environment against Vulcan\u2019s crushed rock quarry on the Caribbean coast. However, Mexican authorities already had shut down Vulcan\u2019s quarrying activities<\/a> last May, and L\u00f3pez Obrador did not explain how seizing the port would protect the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand Mr. Blinken very well,\u201d the president said. \u201cHe has to do his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president has been publicly sparring with Vulcan for over a year. He needs the Punta Venado port, near Playa Del Carmen, to get cement, crushed stone and other materials into the area to finish his pet project, a tourist train known as the Train Maya.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s comments on drug cartel control came after the Mexican government was stung by the execution earlier this week<\/a> \u2014 apparently by a drug cartel \u2014 of a drug gang leader sought for months in the killings of two Jesuit priests.<\/p>\n

Mexican police couldn\u2019t find the suspect despite massive searches, until the drug gangs took matters into their own hands and apparently killed the suspect themselves.<\/p>\n

The Mexican president confirmed that it involved a common practice among drug cartels, which often kill or turn over to police cartel members who have caused too much trouble and affected the gang\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey executed him, who, we don\u2019t know,\u201d L\u00f3pez Obrador said, \u201cperhaps because they thought that by doing so the search would end and the soldiers who have been there would leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexico\u2019s president on Friday angrily rejected comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Mexican government has lost control over parts of the country. However, President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador acknowledged that Mexican cartels had placed people inside Mexico\u2019s drug regulatory agency to approve imports of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China. Earlier this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/75084bd5fd8946418ea4711114ec51f7\/800.webp","fifu_image_alt":"Mexican President Pushes Back on U.S. Criticism on Violence","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8093,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions\/8093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}