By Mary Sanchez
Tribune Content Agency
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is wrong on his facts, but completely on point with his broader messaging.
Both can be true. And if that is confusing, then try delving into an honest historical reading of the relationship between the United States and Mexico, because the cause of so much bloodshed and violence in Mexico is North America’s drug addictions and the guns we manufacture, which are then trafficked to Mexico.
This point, which López Obrador tried to expound on after a gaff of major inaccuracy, deserves attention.
Mexico and the U.S. are inextricably linked by soil, blood, tears, traditions and in many instances, the very DNA of our people. It will always be so. It is a love/hate relationship. Our problems and our strengths co-exist, each complicit, one feeding off the other, for better and for worse.
We know each other. We study each other. We just fail to act on the information.
So it was almost comical when López Obrador claimed that Mexico was safer than the U.S., before also noting that the hyper-focus of conservative politicians north of his border, aided by shady media, are embarking on “pure, vile manipulation.”
“Mexico is safer than the United States,” López Obrador insisted in a March 13 news briefing for reporters, a weekly event. “There is no problem in traveling safely in Mexico,” he added.
He’s a liar on that point.
Two days before, in the beautiful Guanajuato, 10 people died and five were wounded when gunmen opened fire in a bar.
Before this article will find its way to eyes online, more will die in Mexico by gun violence, taken with some mercy if they die quickly and not so if torture is used.
This is an absolute given because of the strength of the drug cartels, their indiscriminate use of gunfire to keep people in check and how they have long been grafted to many of the nation’s influential politicians and law enforcement officials.
Corruption is endemic. But it will be, and has long been, mostly Mexicans who will die, or simply disappear, adding to the current 100,000 logged as “missing.”
As other media have widely reported, the homicide rate in Mexico is about 28 per 100,000 people. In the U.S., the figure is about 7 per 100,000.
Still, fear and trepidation about traveling south of the border cannot be easily measured. Nor should it be dismissed.
And López Obrador wasn’t really concerned about his own people dying, not at that press conference at least.
He was addressing negative pushback because of the terrifying ordeal four African American travelers encountered in the border city of Matamoros. The group was kidnapped. Two were found dead and the other two survived (one had been shot multiple times in the legs).
The travelers crossed the border so one member of the group could receive cosmetic surgery. It’s believed that drug cartels were responsible. A Mexican woman was also caught up in the violence and killed. She was literally in the wrong place (her own country) at the wrong time.
The concern this violence ignited is understandable, but the tone taken by some U.S. politicians is not.
Six of Mexico’s 32 states have been marked “do not travel to” and another seven fall into the “reconsider travel” category issued by the U.S. State Department.
“U.S. citizens should exercise increased caution in the downtown areas of popular spring break locations including Cancún, Playa Del Carmen, and Tulum, especially after dark,” the department added.
As for the rest of López Obrador’s accusations, they deserve far deeper contemplation.
An estimated 70 to 90 percent of the firearms in Mexico are manufactured in the U.S. And when Mexico tried to sue U.S. gun manufacturers those firms were shielded by a U.S. law that protects the industry from bearing much, if any, responsibility for the violence those guns inflict.
The Trace reported on American-made firearms cited in Mexico’s allegations, detailing “every firearm recovered by the Mexican military between 2010 and May of 2020 – almost 125,000 weapons,” which included “machine guns, grenade launchers, and tens of thousands of pistols and rifles.”
Further, North America is the prime market for drug cartels. Our nation has not gotten serious about fighting drug addiction, which so often has roots in mental health.
Look at how the pharmaceuticals have been pushed onto Americans. Opioids were a big money maker for drug companies, often oblivious to the spreading addiction their products caused.
Before that, it was the folly of trying to fight a “war on drugs,” as if the enemy was another country’s army, rather than our own addictions.
Fentanyl mostly arrives in the U.S. through ports, not via the southern border. Good luck finding a GOP politician – adept at pontification – who will stick to that reality.
It’s far easier to hype Mexico as the sole bearer of responsibility.
And now, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to name cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and to allow our military to go into Mexico to bust up drug labs, a horrible idea that brazenly disrespects Mexico’s sovereignty.
Our drug enforcement experts could have a much bigger impact in Mexico by cooperating with Mexican authorities, especially if latter weren’t so corrupt. But the drug problem is so cyclical, and so intertwined with our own reality.
The most boastful and often pompous voices on each side of the border, rarely, if ever, tell the truth or speak in full truths.
It will remain a distant goal to support, fund and insist on genuine cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico, which is what it would take for solace to reign on both sides of the border.
Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn.
©2023 Mary Sanchez. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.