Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The United States exerts pressure on Mexico over terrorism because it threatens its national security. Migration, trade, and any other issues that may arise in the future are collateral to the issue of its national security.
The apparently exotic proposals for the annexation of Greenland and Canada and an appropriation of the Panama Canal make sense in the context of its concerns over issues of US national security. These concerns must be understood without underestimating them to know how to proceed in the new context.
Territorially, the three proposals seek to protect the US continental landmass from external threats.
For the United States, the Arctic has become a flank without adequate military protection against possible Russian or Chinese attacks, two countries that have rapid access to the North Pole to carry out attacks against its continental landmass. Russia’s naval activities in the Arctic have increased in recent years, especially in terms of espionage and the placement of submarine bases and sabotage of communication channels between European countries, including the disruption of internet networks. Countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are aware of the threat posed by Russian advances in that part of the world where they have weak national defenses.
Trump’s intention to occupy this territory is to strengthen his defense and espionage systems in Greenland and northern Canada, which border the North Pole. For this reason, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, has insisted that Canada can collaborate militarily with the United States without territorial concessions. And as a show of loyalty, Canada declares drug cartels to be terrorist organizations, knowing full well the US is concerned about the threat to its national security.
The United States sees Panama as a country in its strategic rearguard. It sees the Panama Canal as the ideal place to place an insurmountable barrier to stop not only migratory movements but also the trafficking of drugs, which has become the most convenient commodity not only for the cartels but also for global terrorist groups in need of weapons and financing.
An important example of this is the recent statement by Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, to the effect that the National Liberation Army (ELN) of Colombia is, in reality, the armed wing of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel. This guerrilla group, created and financed by Cuba at the time to promote socialism in Colombia, is now an instrument used by the Sinaloa Cartel to obtain drugs and, possibly, fighters in Mexico itself.
The Colombian president said, and I quote, “The owners of these guerrilla structures are not commanders, but those who buy the cocaine in Mexico”. In a recent offensive by the ELN in Colombia, at least 53 people were killed, eight disappeared, and more than 50,000 displaced, according to the Colombian government. And all this is attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel.
Mexico is another territory in the context of the Trump administration’s geopolitical concerns. Our country, trapped between the Arctic and Panama, represents the weak link in the United States’ concerns about protecting itself from what it considers to be its real war threats: China and Russia.
The Colombian president expressed, probably unintentionally, US concern about Mexican drug trafficking: the merging of the economic interests of cartels and anti-state political groups that operate in Mexican and US territory is the perfect recipe for creating chaos and economic and social disruption.
The United States does not intend to attack Mexico as an immediate option, as some suggest. It has a thousand instruments of coercion at its disposal before reaching that very unpopular extreme. By declaring the Mexican cartels to be terrorist organizations, the US government can put pressure on national and foreign companies to demand the Mexican government act swiftly and decisively against drug trafficking to avoid falling into the category of helping the cartels with payments or subsidies or even having them as partners. There are notorious examples of companies that have been punished with enormous fines for paying protection money to terrorist groups around the world.
Lafarge SA (France) was fined $778 million for paying ISIS to maintain its cement operations in Syria. Chiquita Brands International (United States) was fined $25 million for paying a Colombian terrorist group for protection. Standard Chartered Bank (United Kingdom) was fined $1 billion for processing transactions linked to Taliban-affiliated entities.
The threat is the same for supply, manufacturing, agricultural and mining chains, financial institutions, real estate and construction, logistics, and transportation companies. Companies that pay protection money to drug cartels or contract their companies in Mexico can be fined by the US authorities.
Another area susceptible to pressure from the United States on Mexico is sending remittances. A US Congressional document states that “at least” 17% of remittances are the product of drug trafficking. If this is confirmed, the US authorities can start fining companies that send remittances “with illicit content” or, worse, stop sending remittances, pending a thorough review of their origins. These delays will obviously affect the millions of recipients of legitimate remittances. It could even be assumed that all remittances are of illicit origin and prevent them from being sent to Mexico, pending a resolution by the judicial authorities. As remittances are Mexico’s number one source of income, the economic disruption this would cause would be extremely serious, especially in these times when the economic situation in Mexico is extremely vulnerable.
Intense economic pressures will likely persist in achieving security objectives. These pressures will undoubtedly reappear during the renegotiation, review, or cancellation of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC.
All of this serves to recognize that the Morena government’s definitions of drug trafficking can cause severe difficulties for the country if there is no clarity on the route to overcome the problem. The United States, Canada, and the European Union have accused the Mexican authorities of complicity with the cartels. It is in Mexico’s interest to prove the accusations false. Its actions through public policy will speak for themselves. Without considering US military action, the economic actions described here, and many others, will happen if there are no verifiable results. To face this new reality, acting with a cool head and forceful actions is necessary.
@rpascoep
Further Reading: