Washington will build a global coalition to combat the illicit synthetic drug trade, the statement said, in an effort to “develop solutions, drive national actions, and create synergies and leverage among like-minded countries.”
The sanctions come as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and members of his security cabinet plan to meet with U.S. officials this week about fentanyl and arms trafficking.
President Joe Biden’s push to counter drug traffickers also coincides with numerous lawmakers’ critiques that his administration has not done enough to stem the tide of drugs flowing from Mexico. As tensions with the southern neighbor rise, prominent Republicans have even called for bombing drug cartels in Mexico to solve the problem.
Former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term in the White House, has floated the idea of sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he’s open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords — even without Mexico City’s permission.
“We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz told POLITICO.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who’s weighing his own presidential run, said unilateral military operations “are not going to solve the problem.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), for example, is “still evaluating” the AUMF proposal “but has concerns about the immigration implications and the bilateral relationship with Mexico,” per a Republican staff member on the panel.
But the eagerness of some Republicans to openly legislate or embrace the use of the military in Mexico suggests that the idea is taking firmer root inside the party. And it illustrates the ways in which frustration with immigration, drug overdose deaths and antipathy towards China are defining the GOP’s larger foreign policy.
Nearly 71,000 Americans died in 2021 from synthetic-opioid overdoses — namely fentanyl — far higher than the 58,220 U.S. military personnel killed during the Vietnam War. And the Drug Enforcement Agency assessed in December that “most” of the fentanyl distributed by two cartels “is being mass-produced at secret factories in Mexico with chemicals sourced largely from China.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are allergic to the Republican proposals. President Joe Biden doesn’t want to launch an invasion and has rejected the terrorist label for cartels. His team argues that two issued executive orders already expanded law-enforcement authorities to target transnational organizations.
“The administration is not considering military action in Mexico,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “Designating these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would not grant us any additional authorities that we don’t already have.” Instead, Watson said the administration hopes to work with Congress on modernizing the Customs and Border Protection’s technologies and making fentanyl a Schedule I drug, which would impose the strictest regulations on its production and distribution.
Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, told Defense One in an interview last month that invading Mexico was a bad idea. “I wouldn’t recommend anything be done without Mexico’s support,” he said, insisting that tackling the cartel-fueled drug trade is a law enforcement issue.
But should a Republican defeat Biden in 2024, those ideas could become policy, especially if Trump — the GOP frontrunner — reclaims the Oval Office.
As president, Trump considered placing cartels on the State Department’s terrorist blacklist. He also asked about using missiles to take out drug labs and cartels in Mexico, according to former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who wrote in his memoir that he rejected the idea at the time.
But Trump backed away from the move because of the legal complications and fears that bombing Mexico could lead to increased asylum claims at the southern border.
Now a candidate, Trump is reviving his hawkish instincts toward the drug lords. He has already vowed to deploy U.S. special forces to take on drug cartels, “just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate.”
In one policy video released by his campaign, Trump said that if reelected, he would “order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.”
And during a recent presidential rally speech in Waco, Texas, Trump compared the number of deaths from fentanyl overdoses to a kind of military attack.
“People talk about the people that are pouring in,” Trump said. “But the drugs that are pouring into our country, killing everybody, killing so many people — there’s no army that could ever do damage to us like that still.”
Other 2024 candidates side with Trump. Using military force on cartels without Mexico’s permission “would not be the preferred option, but we would absolutely be willing to do it,” entrepreneur and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy said in an interview. What the cartels are doing “is a form of attack” on the United States, he added.
Ramaswamy also said he backs an authorization for the use of military force for “specific” groups: “If those cartels meet the test for qualifying as a domestic terrorist organization for the purpose of freezing their assets, I think that qualifies them for the U.S. president to view them as an eligible target for the use of authorized military force.”
Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor and among the more moderate foreign policy voices in his party, openly supports the foreign terrorist organization label for the cartels. “They meet the definition,” he said weeks before announcing his entrance into the 2024 field this month.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is openly against any U.S. military involvement in his country to take on the cartels. “In addition to being irresponsible, it is an offense to the people of Mexico,” he said in March.
But Waltz, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, noted that Colombia’s government was initially resistant to the idea of U.S. military support, too, until both the Clinton and Bush administrations said they were going to send help anyway. “It was only once we delivered some tough messages that they started to shift,” he said, noting attitudes in Bogotá changed as the situation worsened in the country.
Furthermore, Waltz contends that U.S. law enforcement is “overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem by the capability of the cartels.” America should use military cyber weapons to disrupt cartel communications and money flow, he suggested, adding: “If we need some drone support along the border, that’s not something that a law enforcement agency can do, that’s something the military needs to help with.”
But current and former U.S. foreign policy and military officials, including Republicans, say there are glaring problems with the military proposals. “If you thought Iraq was a bad situation, wait until you invade a country on our border,” a House Republican congressional aide said. “Our grandchildren will be dealing with this.”
They cite two main concerns.
The first is that U.S. Northern Command assesses that 30 to 35 percent of Mexican territory is ungoverned, giving space for the drug cartels to roam free. Should the U.S. launch military operations in Mexico, a crush of people would find their way to U.S. ports of entry seeking asylum and their claims would be stronger by fleeing an active war zone involving U.S.-labeled terrorists.
“You’ve just legitimately made it harder to send thousands of people back,” the House GOP staffer said.
The second issue is that while using force against drug cartels might impact the supply side of the fentanyl crisis, it doesn’t address demand. And past examples of the U.S. military working with a nation to combat drug groups, like in Colombia, were successful, in part, because the host country was committed to the fight and conducted the operations.
There are other complications, such as what the terrorist label would mean for people selling drugs online or shipping them — would a FedEx delivery person be jailed? — and how to stop the sheer volume of imports to Mexico. The Mexican Navy can’t intercept it all, and U.S. forces asked to assist may only catch a small fraction more of what comes into the country.
Still, Republicans see military options as a last-ditch effort to address the crisis roiling Mexico and the United States, and they will continue offering suggestions until a president agrees with them.
“The worst thing we can do is continue to do nothing,” Waltz said.
Meridith McGraw and Natalie Allison contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: India and the US share a robust working relationship on addressing the major challenge posed by fentanyl drugs, a top health official in the Biden administration has said.
Fentanyl is a highly potent synthetic opioid primarily used as an analgesic. Since 2018, fentanyl and its analogues have been responsible for most drug overdose deaths in the US, causing over 71,238 deaths in 2021.
The Biden administration launched a massive campaign on Thursday to educate young people about the dangers of fentanyl and the life-saving effects of Naloxone, a medicine that reverses opioid-related overdoses.
“India has been very enthusiastic working with the United States to address this (fentanyl problem) because it understands the significance at a global level of leadership,” Dr. Rahul Gupta, Director of Office of National Drug Control Policy, a position which is popularly known as Drug Czar, told PTI.
He said India is acting like a global leader when it comes to addressing the threat of synthetic drugs.
“There is a robust working relationship between the United States and India on this because it understands the significance at a global level of leadership,” said Dr Gupta, who is one of the highest-ranking Indian Americans in the Biden administration.
Referring to remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India is the pharmacy of the world, Gupta said the country has a large pharmaceutical and chemical industry.
“There’s a lot of work going on, including bilateral working relationships around synthetic drugs, and mental health as well as the pharmaceutical arena,” he said.
“We are very excited about that relationship. We’re looking forward to furthering our bilateral relationship and strengthening it because we know that India can and will and is playing the role of a global leader in this area,” Gupta said.
The United States and Indian governments are working to make sure that they are both looking at their scheduling regimes, he said.
“How do we schedule controlled substances? We’re working together to counteract the drug supply routes and networking, as well as prevention of the diversion of these chemicals,” he said.
Gupta said the chemicals are often shipped to other countries and used in the production of these deadly drugs.
He said the two countries are also working together on issues like addiction, treatment expansion, the overlap that happens between mental health and addiction.
“There’s a lot of work, but we’re excited about the enthusiasm and the ability of both countries to partner on this very important topic,” he said.
He said the data shows that less than half of the young people in the US know or understand that fentanyl, a dangerous drug that can kill them, is in their drug supply.
“But if you look at it from a pandemic standpoint, so much has changed: which drugs are out in the market has changed how people acquire drugs and what those drugs have changed,” he said.
As part of the campaign, he said the aim is to meet young people to tell them that they can also have the tools to save lives.
Carrying Naloxone or Narcan, which is an antidote for opioids like fentanyl, it is important for them to carry it because they could be saving the life of themselves, their friends, neighbours, or somebody at school or work, Gupta said.
“It’s really important for us to be telling young people that you are empowered and have the ability to save other people’s lives and carry naloxone with you. Because we don’t know next time who is going to be going through the poisoning,” he said.
“We are also adding to the social media work, and messengers, digital ads that will be displayed in certain states in places like subway stations, college malls, grocery stores to make sure that we meet young people where they are and share this important message, which can often be potentially lifesaving,” he said.
“This is a challenge, … prevails throughout communities, and I’ve seen this in the Indian American community, that it has taken the toll and has taken the lives of young children as well as young adults. So, it’s really important that we spread this message,” he said.
But one tool to combat fentanyl has been overlooked. If members of Congress or the Biden administration really want to take on this deadly drug, there is an opportunity to seriously debilitate the organized criminal syndicates that make, import and distribute it to the American people: Secretary of State Antony Blinken should designate these narco-syndicates as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Using his existing authority, Blinken could make the determination that these organized criminal cartels are, according to the law, “foreign organizations engaged in terrorist activity that threatens the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.”
Here’s why it would work.
Since the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to wage a “supply side” fight overseas, primarily in Latin America, to stop drugs before they are smuggled across our border. Entire bureaucracies in the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security and the CIA have evolved into a massive costly enterprise to keep the poison from reaching U.S. streets.
The effort has been marginally successful at times, but overall American demand for cocaine, heroin and marijuana from South and Central America has remained steady. This has had the effect of “normalizing” the drug trade, rendering it the stuff of Netflix’s “Narcos” series.
What is often misunderstood in the Hollywood treatment the drug trade receives is that it isn’t just run by foreigners. The internal U.S. distribution networks for fentanyl are the most essential component of the foreign cartels’ operations because, without them, there are no sales and no profits. And organized crime since time immemorial exists only for those illicit profits.
By designating producers of fentanyl as FTOs, the U.S. federal and state law enforcement bureaucracies would have expanded powers to freeze the assets of U.S. citizen collaborators of the cartels. They could be prosecuted under terrorism statutes which carry stiffer sentences. The deterrent factor would be palpable.
It’s important to understand who these people are. They are the Main Street small business owners of trucking firms, warehouses and stash houses. They are the accountants, lawyers and bankers, as well as the street level dealers. Imagine if they were all now viewed by the American people and the justice system as being just as deadly as a jihadist with an explosive vest. The cartels need American citizens and U.S. residents to make their fentanyl enterprises run.
But the U.S. does not pursue them with the same intensity as the foreign bad guys, perhaps because they don’t pull the triggers, explode the bombs or kidnap their enemies. Instead, these U.S. individuals press click on small money transfers to offshore shell companies. They open their warehouse doors at a certain time and ask no questions as to what is stored within.
The argument against designation is strictly definitional: What is terrorism? Must a terrorist organization have a political agenda or an ideological belief system? Experts disagree on a uniform definition of what constitutes terrorism. But what is clear is that a reign of terror is upon us, and the American fentanyl crisis compels us to act now.
For years, Mexicans and Colombians have said something very true: In the counternarcotics fight, you Americans put up the money and we put up the dead bodies, as the cartels savagely kill hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans in internecine turf wars. Now the U.S. is putting up dead bodies, too — and many more than it loses to international terrorism.
(Indeed, while the main intent of this proposal is to save U.S. lives and improve the U.S. domestic situation, it would also likely improve security in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Central America and the Caribbean; that would have the added benefit of minimizing one of the greatest “push” factors of illegal migration from those countries, as people would have less need to escape the bloodshed of the drug war.)
Designating narco-syndicates as FTOs might have little practical effect on the drug capos themselves, who are already visa-less and can’t access the U.S. financial system in their own names. But it will have the symbolic effect of linking them to ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other sworn American enemies.
More substantively, it will subject more individuals in the U.S. to investigation for providing “material support” to an FTO. It will put more foreign support personnel on No-Fly lists and keep them from getting visas. And it will highlight for Americans, who have never truly accepted that illegal drugs represent a clear and present danger to the national security of the U.S., that the foreign danger is — paradoxically — domestic in much of its operational logistics.
By weakening these distribution networks in the United States, U.S. law enforcement will not only hurt market incentives, but reduce the amount of money the cartels launder and repatriate to Latin America that allows them to bribe officials, arm themselves and control vast territories of friendly democratic nations.
As young men in very different worlds, we both learned the same lesson: The greatest danger is the one cloaked in bland normalcy. U.S.-based, foreign cartel support networks live in stunning normalcy among us. An FTO designation of the transnational drug cartels would not be a normal move — but it’s the one we need to take if we’re really serious about ending the scourge of fentanyl.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
