Mexican president claims fentanyl is US problem, slams calls for US military action against drug cartels

A week after two Americans were killed and two others kidnapped by a drug cartel just south of the border in Matamoros, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for US military action against drug-trafficking organizations. irresponsible”.

The reprimand came after several Republican lawmakers called for the US military to take direct action against the cartels.

“This is a problem of mass poisoning of citizens of the United States and the cartels are directly responsible,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who introduced a bill earlier this year to authorize military force against the cartels. was, said Wednesday in a message to López Obrador.

“My questions to you are the following: Why do you reject aid from the United States? Why do you protect the cartels? They are your enemy and the United States is your friend.”

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gestures during a news conference at the National Palace on June 20, 2022 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Reuters/Edgard Garrido/File photo)

In a press conference on Thursday, López Obrador called the suggestion “a crime to the people of Mexico,” according to Reuters.

López Obrador said, “We are not going to allow any foreign government to interfere in our territory, let alone the interference of the government’s armed forces.”

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The Mexican president also rejected claims that Mexican drug traffickers are responsible for the flow of fentanyl into the US, despite evidence from US intelligence agencies and the Mexican government itself that the dangerous opioid is smuggled by Mexican cartels.

“Here, we don’t produce fentanyl, and we don’t have fentanyl consumption,” López Obrador said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. “Why don’t they (the United States) take care of their problem of social decay?”

Fentanyl is often pressed into counterfeit pills that resemble prescription drugs. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

America recorded a record 106,699 drug overdose deaths In 2021, nearly two-thirds contained fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin.

The DEA said last December that “most of the fentanyl trafficked by the Sinaloa and CJNG cartels is being mass-produced in clandestine factories in Mexico, along with bulk chemicals from China.”

Fentanyl is often pressed into counterfeit pills that are manufactured to resemble drugs such as Oxycontin and Xanax. The DEA seized more than double the amount of counterfeit pills linked to fentanyl last year than in 2021.

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López Obrador also suggested that he would issue a call for Mexican and Hispanic people in the US not to vote Republican “because they are subhuman and interventionist.”

In a response Thursday afternoon, Crenshaw welcomed the challenge.

Crenshaw tweeted, “Hold up. You should be campaigning against the cartels who are killing your own people, not the Americans who want to help wipe them out.”

A member of Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and multiple bullet holes at the crime scene where gunmen kidnapped four US citizens entering Mexico from Texas, Friday, March 3, 2023. took. (AP Photo)

The death of two Americans last week at the hands of a cartel in the border city of Matamoros prompted fresh calls in the US for a crackdown on the cartels. The group of four South Carolina natives reportedly traveled there for a cosmetic procedure. The two men were rescued earlier this week in a wooden shack and taken back to the US

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C. Said he would introduce legislation to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, giving the US military the authority to act against them.

“We are going to unleash the fury and the power of the United States of America against these cartels,” Graham said at a press conference. “We are going to destroy their business model and their way of life because our national security and the security of the United States of America absolutely depend on them taking decisive action.”