I'm not even sure how Mexico manages to dig itself out. The only way to root out the cartels seems to just hope that the US figures out how to manage its drug market.
It's a pity - Mexico is so rich in culture but is just absolutely crushed by the US's demand for drugs.
The US is a very rich country that is very close by, of course the drugs flow there. To single out the US is like blaming trees for forest fires. They're part of the the problem, but it makes it seem like you just want an easy thing to point a finger at, whereas the grim reality is that it's complex and theres a ton of players and plans that'd need to go into motion to ever improve things.
The US isn't just some incidental drug market with the illegality of drugs being a fact of nature. US policy began the "war on drugs" and US policy forces other nations to continue it. Drug war policies further have accelerated US consumption and the violence of the cartels ("gun walking" etc, etc).
I'm not blaming the US. Like most problems in the world, it's a result of circumstance, not because there's a bad guy. It's not like there's a magical solution to market forces applying to drugs.
My point is more that the geopolitical reasons for the cartel's existence means that Mexico has much less agency in solving it than they would like.
This just seems like polishing your hobby horse rather than responding to anything stated upstream in the convo.
So, Americans wanting drugs and Mexico being able to provide them is related to or caused by an inherent predatory trait that Americans have that's first demonstrated by pioneers a few hundred years ago?
That comment is deleted so I don’t know what they said but to be fair the US absolutely did harm the stable progression/evolution of the Mexican state many times. It has also helped. Just keep that in mind.
At least two of the major candidates for the US Presidency and a few members of Congress (including a Senator) have suggested unilaterally sending the US military to take out the cartels [1] [2] [3].
It would be a years-long occupation with no clear end goal.
It would kill at _least_ hundreds of thousands and negatively affect the lives of an order of magnitude more.
It would almost certainly fail by any reasonable metric. Look at how occupying Iraq and Afganistan went, or how the US has done in South America over the last century.
Yeah and cartel membership isn't so simple. Most people in any cartel prominent state know cartel members and have a complicated relationship with it and them. They don't want some foreign military coming in and killing their uncle/cousin. They want better opportunities for their family members who are affiliated. In fact - that would probably be much cheaper than trying to kill cartel members with drone strikes.
I live in Mexico and talk to people here about the clowns that are running for president in the US. It's genuinely embarrassing.
Edit to address actual reasons it would be bad:
1) Mexicans (in Mexico) distrust the US and its military. The US should not damage the remaining trust it has with an enormous trade ally. That would push Mexico towards China.
2) Could the US significantly damage the cartel(s) on their own turf?
3) What are the cartels? Are they the literal president-level politicians who are affiliated? Should the US "take them out" too?
I could go on but really the short answer is that the US would end up causing a mess, ruining the lives of normal people, and damaging its relationship with a major world economy and major trade ally.
They should call Iraq and Afghanistan for references /s
It's an impossible situation, but I don't think it's difficult to understand why Mexicans would not want the US military to invade based on its track record.
The US military couldn’t capture one man, Poncho Villa, the last time they entered Mexico and they pissed off most of the country in the process. How are they going to round up more than 100k while not overstaying their welcome?
Also I think the US military is not the best at fighting an insurgency.
The US military cannot do this effectively because our rules of engagement prevent collateral damage. The Mexicans have to do what El Salvador did, build a massive prison out in the middle of nowhere and essentially pick people up off the straight based on suspicion and ship them off. It has to be sudden and everywhere all at once.
Coincidentally, this started right after they found a gigantic source of lithium and said the state would control the mining of it, blocking American companies from exploiting it.
Honestly, I think the US could magically stop all drug imports tomorrow and it would barely affect the cartels. They're essentially just the government of Mexico and tax all industries accordingly. They can get by fine off protection money, iron, avocados, limes, etc.
The cartels are involved with things other than drugs, too. It's also pretty laughable to think that even if the US "demand for drugs" evaporated overnight the cartels would just throw up their hands and say "guess we have to go legit now!".
That's an over simplification. Imagine that drugs, gambling and prostitution were legalized (with restrictions), the cartels would fork off that business into their "legitimate" businesses. Pay taxes and work through there.
Eventually, these would become two separate businesses as enforcement would focus on the connection between the businesses and levy sanctions. History is full of such stories where bootleggers became respected business owners.
The cartel won't disappear, but it will shrink as its big sources of income would become irrelevant. That would mean law enforcement can be more focused and follow a smaller target. Violence will decrease and everybody wins. Additional taxes from these industry fund more policing of the remainder of the cartels.
People have all sorts of reasons for wanting legalization beyond disempowering drug cartels.
Like keeping people out of prison for nonviolent crimes, building a culture of rehab over penalization, and creating legitimate drug markets instead of dangerous black markets, off the top of my head, that have nothing to do with whether cartels having other lucrative enterprises beyond drugs.
The parent appeared to be suggesting that legalizing drugs would not solve the cartel problem, because the cartels have already displayed a willingness to engage in different forms of harmful activity. The argument wasn't "legalization is bad", but rather "legalization won't solve this specific problem".
I don't think Mexico is actually trying to root out the cartels. The corruption, bribes and threats are more powerful than Mexico's will for rule of law. I don't disagree that U.S. demand for drugs plays an enabling role here, but it's telling that the cartels are based in Mexico and not within the U.S. A cartel kingpin could eliminate a huge problem class by not needing to get drugs across the border, but evidently that's easier than evading the DEA on their home turf. Why does Mexico not have an equally fear inspiring agency?
Mexico has been a victim of corruption since before it was a nation. Its political system under the Spanish was designed for efficient resource extraction and labor exploitation. Its home-grown system in the 1930's was created for the consolidation of political power and money to the winners of it's revolution.
Combine this with the fact that the drug market in the US is ~$150B, it's hardly surprising that the cartel pops up to service the demand while joining hands with the corrupt central government. Neither group cares about the people.
To begin to tackle it as you suggest, I think Mexico needs a full blown revolution which somehow manages to resist the billions of dollars the cartels are sitting on. It's not like Mexican's aren't trying either - it's just that if they try too hard, they get publicly executed.
Note that that herculean effort only addresses the supply problem. The demand will still be there until the US controls it's drug epidemic, which I don't think anyone knows how to do.
As I mentioned above, I'm not assigning any blame. I think both countries are in some kind of extremely shitty local maxima where the problems are so difficult to solve that a minority of people are able to profit and perpetuate the status quo.
In this case, "supply creates its own demand" and in more than just the usual way.
Mexico can't dig itself out but the United States could quite easily crush the cartels and letting them continue is an active policy choice. (Consider the organized retail theft and carjacking in San Francisco and Chicago... these are not individual criminals, nor would the racket be profitable without an organized network carefully managing and allocating resources).
The US would just need to flood the drug market with cheap state made drugs collapsing the price for a year or two. But then like any company the cartels and the prison industry lobby to well.
Canada doesn't produce the most profitable drugs like cocaine. Producing drugs like meth would be equally difficult as in the US itself due to functioning law enforcement, so why do it in Canada in the first place?
Mexico doesn't produce cocaine either, but is on the way to the US from the south.
Lol. And in an interesting symmetry, prisons are the largest employers in many areas of the United States. The prison industry, or "corrections" more broadly, probably breaks the top five in most US states.
>Organised crime groups in Mexico have about 175,000 members – making them the fifth-biggest employer in the country, according to new research published in the journal Science
Drugs isn't even where the cartels make most of their money anymore, is it? I was under the impression iron mining was their #1 source of revenue nowadays with avocados, limes, and logging also being big money-makers.
Lol yea! Come to think of it it might even be preferable to have cartels replace law enforcement everywhere. Just think, no restrictions on drugs of any kind, and if anyone makes a fuss, just shoot them. Genius, sweet and simple.
> The authors argue that the best way to reduce the bloodshed would be to cut cartel recruitment
Okay, but how? The whole article goes on about reducing recruitment, and how incarceration isn’t the answer, but never specified how do you reduce recruitment?
I'm confused about what "reducing recruitment" even means in this scenario. There's demand, and then there are organizations who supply that demand, and then there are people who need jobs (sometimes desperately).
Is "reducing recruitment" another way of saying, "if we would 'just' fix the whole economy then people wouldn't be inclined to accept this type of work"? That's kind of what it sounds like. That reasoning falls flat when you face the reality that demand is not slowing down, and that the cartels are already thoroughly entrenched. Back to square one.
Based on my studies since things really kicked off in 2010 it persists because of poverty mostly. Mostly rural places kind of fighting similar turf battles they have for generations. Alliances come and go.
The profit motive is real but honestly it doesn’t trickle down to the cannon fodder. Sometimes you can tell when they got shot down by the authorities and then a gun was tossed next to their body. Street gangs LA Chicago rural gangs in Michocan and old traditional “we ain’t changing shit” in Nectar Lima.
Fuel theft, extortion, prostitution…same old stuff really just an environment and culture quite unique to outsiders. Chino Antrax. Boats Blancas. The resting place for Z-3 El Lazca…
Though it’s not like this is just one cartel. It’s all cartels combined. It’s like if you added up all crime or all drug dealers in the US and said that was a single employer.
I surprised there's never mention of reducing the flow of arms illegally exported from the US. From a practical perspective I think this is low-hanging fruit.
I have no idea what you’re even talking about, but basically all weapons used by the cartels are purchased in the US. Mexico has only one legal gun store in the entire country and legally owning firearms is tightly restricted compared to the US.
These exports are already illegal under US law, but it is deliberately made difficult to enforce ultimately because the gun manufacturers love it when someone comes in every week and buys 50 rifles without concern for price and then drives them off over the border. They’ve managed to convince a lot of legal gun owners that the rather straightforward steps that would be necessary to prevent this from happening are a major infringement on their rights and preparation for some kind of government purge.
A very similar situation existed in Florida with the “pain management clinics” that were selling massive quantities of drugs while the government did nothing about it for years.
The people crossing with those guns are doing it legally. I've talked with ex security detail for one politician here and he explained, you can just take apart the gun and bring it piecemeal across the border without question. In my mind the solution is controlling the purchase of guns.
Taking apart a gun is not a legal loophole, all guns have one piece, the frame/receiver, which is engraved with the serial number and in the US is legally considered to be “the gun”, as opposed to “parts”.
Being a “straw buyer”, e.g. buying gun on someone else’s behalf, is illegal in and of itself even within the country. To legally export firearms, parts, or ammunition outside the country requires a license from the ATF. This is not a trivial license to get, and needs to identify who is ultimately going to receive them.
Right now about 600 guns a day cross the border into Mexico, but they are not going legally.
Totally possible I misunderstood the legal details but the method I described is what people do to bring guns into the country. Just sharing anec-data. I appreciate the legal background knowledge though!
I don't think the US has a strong motivation to fight against this particular status quo. Politicians are aware that Americans like drugs, and they're probably very hesitant to put themselves directly between supply and demand.
Furthermore, I imagine a line of reasoning exists somewhere that a weak neighbor is a neighbor who can be manipulated. If we need tactical placements in that neighbors back yard, chances are that they can be exclusively acquired through threat of force and bribery (Edit: that is to say, they can be bullied, and the US is the closest and most effective bully around when you're Mexico. Keep in mind they're not just being bullied with threats, but also with promises of a more cooperative and economically entwined future).
Realistically, I think pretty much all Americans want to see Mexico succeed. Mexican culture is appreciated and related to here. Sadly, things being the way they are it seems difficult to be the one to actually get in the way of any of the obstacles holding Mexico back.
Interested to know if cartel activity decreased since some US states legalised marijuana. And how much it could potentially fall if all other US states followed suit.
If marijuana and cocaine were made legal and taxed in the US, would these cartels still exist?
They likely would exist, at least some of them. Cartels are getting into legal industries like avocados and gold mines. They are also involved with human trafficking, protection rackets, robberies, etc.
The LA Times did an exposé about the avocado aspect.
I would expect a lot more turf wars if drug market shrinks. And not having the drug money flow into the country might not be that great, at lest in short time.
It's a pity - Mexico is so rich in culture but is just absolutely crushed by the US's demand for drugs.