The head of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, Sara Carter, has praised the collaboration that the United States has achieved with Mexico in the fight drug cartels during the Administration of Claudia Sheinbaum. Carter has given an example with the operation led by the Mexican Army to hunt down Nemesio Oseguera, El Mencholeader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), in February. “We said: ‘Look, here’s the information, go get him,’ and they did. And we had never seen that, not in that way, not with that cooperation,” the US official said in an interview for the American Thought Leaders program, launched on Saturday night. “We saw significant progress in Mexico,” he added.
Carter visited Mexico two days after the fall of Menchothe big pending in the deck of criminal leaders, to participate in a high-level bilateral security meeting. Even US President Donald Trump called Sheinbaum to find out details of the blow to the CJNG. Both countries spoke of that operation as a successful case of cooperation: the United States provided intelligence, and Mexico, the strategy. Carter has confirmed that position. “We were able to go after El Mencho, and we did it through our intelligence, but using the Mexican National Guard, the Mexican special forces, General Ricardo Trevilla (Secretary of Defense), their operation, they collaborated with us,” he stressed.
The United States anti-drug czarina has defended that the Trump Administration has “targeted those in the Government who sold out to the cartels, who have made it easier for them to operate,” in reference to the Washington’s accusation against the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rochaand several senior officials of allegedly collaborating with the Joaquín cartel El Chapo Guzman. Carter referred to “all the government officials who are part of the Culiacán clan”, whom he points out to “protect the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Chapitos, Los Mayitos, the Guzmán, the entire El Chapo operation.”
The official has stated that the United States “can do that”, go against narcopolitics, for two reasons: “one, because the Mexican Government, like many governments in our hemisphere, knows that President Trump is absolutely serious (when he) says: ‘we are going to come after you if you don’t cooperate with us, and you are going to regret it’; The second reason, according to Carter, is because governments “know this is good for them.”
He Rocha case It has been precisely the factor that has stalled the thriving collaborative relationship. The Sheinbaum Government considers that the accusation against Rocha – a member of the ruling party, Morena – has political background and is an excuse for the United States to get involved in Mexico’s domestic affairs. After the file against the Sinaloan governor was made public, the president asked Washington for more bilateral meetings on security matters to avoid “misunderstandings”. Around that time, Sheinbaum announced that Carter would visit Mexico again, but the meeting was ultimately canceled.
