Politics: US-Mexico security cooperation in doubt

MEXICO - Report 21 Dec 2020 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

Last week, the Mexican Congress amended the country’s National Security Law to regulate the presence and operations of foreign agents within Mexico. Everything indicates that the regulatory changes are directly aimed at US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents operating in the country. The changes are also seen as a response to the October 15 arrest at LAX of Former Defense Minister General Salvador Cienfuegos based on a case mounted by the DEA. The arrest totally blindsided Mexican officials, the latest chapter in the long, torturous relationship between the US agency and Mexican authorities, especially the Mexican Army.

The new legislation sets back the bilateral security relationship several decades, back to the dark days of the mid 1980s after the Guadalajara kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena prompted the Reagan administration to shut down the nearly 2,000-mile-long border and the DEA to conduct what was described as the agency’s largest manhunt in history.

To a large extent, the reforms were a political message for domestic consumption, showing support for an outraged military high command, and projecting López Obrador as a defender of national sovereignty in contrast to the Calderón and Peña Nieto governments, which were generally viewed as being very pliable and subordinate in the face of US agencies and officials. It will take longer to know how much lasting damage to bilateral relations has already been done. The Trump administration and Republican politicians were quick to express their displeasure with the reforms, but it is not yet clear how the next occupant of the White House is likely to react. And López Obrador did not help matters by becoming one of the last and seemingly most reluctant heads of state to congratulate President-elect Biden on his victory. If the Biden administration is in a conciliatory mood, some practical arrangements might help defuse the situation, although the new terms of the law would likely be unacceptable to any US administration.  

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