Mexico-United States Relations by Santa-Cruz Arturo;

Author:Santa-Cruz, Arturo; [Santa-Cruz, Arturo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

III. Drug Trafficking

Just as with migration, the production and trafficking of narcotics to the United States could in a first instance be considered a fundamentally economic issue. In as far as the U.S. has a strong demand for these products, Mexico has participated in meeting the demand. But the issue is, again, more complex. This phenomenon has not only made Mexico adopt a series of legal regulations around narcotics, but moreover has been the cause of a growing sum of human loses and financial expenditures. For the most part, these changes have responded to drug problems in Mexico's neighbor to the north, but they have also led to the adoption of internal regulations on domestic consumption of narcotics. This is not only an external requirement that was later applied by Mexico. Cooperation with the U.S. has been a constant in operating and maintaining the national drug control regime.

The dynamics in this issue, however, have varied. There have been tense moments in the bilateral relation on this matter. These tensions have appeared quite regularly, approximately every 10 years, since the late thirties through the mid eighties, as cases considered below will show.204 During this period Mexico has signed 47 bilateral agreements with the U.S. on narcotics, including everything from eradication campaigns, to U.S. anti-drug police operations (first out of the Treasury Department Office of Narcotics and later with the Drug Enforcement Administration—DEA—created in 1973), including training of Mexican anti-drug forces, equipment transfers from the U.S., and intelligence sharing.205 In addition, Mexico's legislation has generally reflected the U.S. position on the matter.206 Thus, in bilateral relations relevant to drug trade, Mexico has been subjected to a “coercive diplomacy” from the U.S.207

Beyond the origin or the nature of this interaction in the area of drug production and trade, it is important to mention that in spite of the tense moments mentioned above, cooperation on this matter was satisfactory, in general, for many decades until a crisis erupted in the mid 1980s. That is, although an inherently conflictive topic, Washington and Mexico were able to manage it without major jams through most of the twentieth century.208 The success achieved in such a long period has double merit, considering that in general the U.S. respected Mexican jurisdiction. Cooperation with Washington was an integral part of Mexican foreign policy, which sought above all to keep armed agents of its neighbor outside Mexican territory.209

The fact that the post-revolutionary regime acted pragmatically (and even relatively efficiently) on the matter of drug trade with its neighbor, which did facilitate bilateral relations, does not mean that this cooperation was viewed positively by Mexican society—which had been exposed, since the origins of the post-revolutionary regime, to a discourse of national sovereignty antagonistic to many of the practices that the binational drug enforcement involved. As a result it was necessary to carry out this cooperation with discretion; a clear example is found in the undercover activities that, since the 1930s, have been implemented by U.S. anti-narcotics agents in Mexico.210

Cooperation with Washington on drug trade issues precedes even the foundation of the regime emanated from the 1910 Revolution.

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