Mexico-US matters

[Crafty_Dog]

a) raw ingredients for fentanyl;

b) 50k and on way to 125K by year's end of Chinese MAMs (Military Aged Males);

c) now this:

"China and Mexico conducted their first direct flight on Sunday with both Ambassadors in tow. The Chinese Ambassador to Mexico said this will facilitate economic and personnel ties between China and all of Latin America."

[Crafty_Dog]

The Americas
Brodie Kirkpatrick, Expeditionary Intelligence

Political Violence in Mexico at Historical High as Elections Draw Closer

As Mexico prepares for a general election next month, political violence has plagued the nation at all levels. Many candidates have been killed, injured, otherwise threatened, or withdrawn from their races.


Introduction

Throughout the month of May, multiple media outlets reported that violence in Mexico leading up to this June’s general election is the highest it has been in recent history. More than two dozen candidates for various offices have been killed leading up to the June 2 vote; hundreds have dropped out of races. Additionally, hundreds of others have asked the federal government for security details. The goal of armed groups is to install corrupted or coerced leaders in local offices so they can better exploit Mexican communities.

Once largely focused on shipping drugs to the United States, the cartels now also smuggle migrants, extort businesses, and win contracts for firms they control.

Cartels have focused most of their efforts on local politics in influential states vying to control things like municipal police, public works, and many other essential departments of state and local governments. This strategy makes controlling mayoral offices crucial, however, despite the large focus on local municipalities, candidates for governor and senate seats are also at high risk. Cartels have targeted candidates from all of Mexico’s major parties. In Maravatío, a municipality of 80,000 in the central state of Michoacan, three candidates for mayor have been killed; two from Morena, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador party, and one from the opposition National Action Party, or PAN. Carlos Palomeque, head of the PAN in Chiapas, says nearly two dozen mayoral candidates from the party have dropped out of their races. It used to be that the cartels bought off voters, he says. Now, “they force candidates from the race. It’s cheaper.”

López Obrador accuses the opposition and media of exaggerating the violence in states across Mexico to discredit his efforts against organized crime. Yet even López Obrador’s protégé, presidential front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum, was stopped by masked men last month in a region of the state controlled by the Sinaloa cartel. The men warned her to “remember the poor people” and waved her through their checkpoint.

Can President Lopez Obrador End Mexico's Drug War?
Despite AMLO’s claims of exaggeration, just in the past 45 days, front-running mayoral candidates in influential states such as Guanajuato, Chiapas, Puebla, and Tabasco have been killed by gunmen. The most notable of those killed was Carlos Narvaez Romero, a member of the Grupo Tabasco, a collective of politicians and influential Mexican business owners closely aligned with President AMLO such as Adán Augusto López, former Secretary of the Interior, Octavio Romero Oropeza, general director of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Javier May, Morena candidate to the governorship of said entity, as well as Rafael Marín Mollinedo, Mexico's ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO), who was also head of the National Customs Agency. Romero was slated to succeed the former head of customs who was killed in 2022. 

Analyst Comment

While political violence is nothing new for Mexico, this election season has proven to be the most violent in recent history. Despite having high political violence, Mexico’s non-state actors vying for influence are not stoking the violence to eventually conduct a coup. Adversely, the cartels want control and to be able to operate behind the scenes with impunity without being thrust into the spotlight of the international stage. Traditionally, cartels have paid off, blackmailed, or coerced officials. However, the recent uptick in violence may signal a change in the modus operandi while also highlighting the lack of control the government has over the situation. To further cement this, cartels have consistently proven to the public that if they speak out against the violence they will likely be tracked, kidnapped, tortured, and/or killed without recourse from authorities as there are multiple accounts of this. Beyond the uptick in violence, the profile of the individuals murdered such as Carlos Romero who was slated to be the next head of customs for the entirety of Mexico has also raised much concern of whether an end to this violence is in sight or if this will be the normal for upcoming elections. Going into the June elections the possibility for violence remains extremely high and is likely to worsen.

[Crafty_Dog]

The Election Stakes in Mexico
The big question: Will the ruling Morena party get a large enough legislative majority to rewrite the constitution?
By
The Editorial Board
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May 19, 2024 4:57 pm ET

Mexicans vote to elect a new President on June 2, not that you’d know it from the lack of American media coverage of our southern neighbor. But the stakes are high, and the biggest question is whether the ruling Morena party of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be able to move closer to his vision of a one-party state.

AMLO, as the President is known, is term limited and won’t be on the ballot. But his handpicked Morena successor, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is leading in the polls and pledges to continue his agenda of leftwing nationalist economics and eliminating constitutional checks and balances.

Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez is a former National Action Party (PAN) senator. She’s running on an ideologically diverse coalition ticket that includes the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution, the centrist PRI and the center-right PAN. The parties have united in concern about a Sheinbaum presidency that could have AMLO pulling the political strings behind the throne.

Entrepreneurship, business competition, strong property rights and open markets are Gálvez campaign themes that set her apart from Ms. Sheinbaum and AMLO. Ms. Gálvez wants Mexico to live up to its free-trade commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and insists the U.S. do the same. On a visit to the Journal in February, she said that as president she would seek closer cooperation with the U.S. on economic and security matters. Ms. Gálvez’s Mexico would be an ally of the West.

This would break with Mr. López Obrador’s foreign policy. He’s been using migration as a bargaining chip with the Biden Administration to ward off U.S. action under USMCA to force Mexico to stop discriminating against foreign energy investors.

AMLO’s Mexico is an ally of Venezuela and Cuba and home to large numbers of Russian intelligence agents, according to U.S. Northern Command in 2022. He claims to follow a policy of not intervening in other countries, but three of his ambassadors have been declared persona non grata for meddling in support of the left in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

Cartel violence and extortion have long scarred Mexico, but they have spiked under AMLO. Mexico isn’t a failed state, at least not yet, but narcos now control large swaths of the country. The AMLO government has used financial investigations and confidential tax records against political adversaries. All of this has undermined the rule of law.

One irony is that AMLO is popular because Mexico has benefited from freer trade and the market reforms of his predecessors. Investment has flowed in as manufacturers seek to set up plants to serve the huge North American market. The Mexican peso has strengthened to nearly 17 to the U.S. dollar from more than 20 in 2018. Real wages are up and job creation is robust.

But AMLO’s policies put this economic progress at risk. The government forecasts a fiscal deficit of 5.9% of GDP this year despite a growing economy. It hopes to cut the deficit in half by 2025 with spending cuts that could easily turn out to be unrealistic. Pro-growth policies aren’t part of the Morena agenda, which favors heavy government spending and national corporate monopolies.

Mr. López Obrador is hoping that Ms. Sheinbaum wins with a big enough margin to carry Morena to two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers. That would clear the way to amend the constitution and reverse the 2014 opening of Mexico’s energy markets, erode the independence of the Supreme Court and electoral authorities, and eliminate independent regulators. Morena now has simple majorities in both chambers and AMLO has used them to gradually change the Supreme Court.

High voter turnout would help Ms. Gálvez, who is trailing in most polls by double digits. AMLO’s government is using its media allies to claim the election is already over. But sampling bias and the potential of a large hidden vote could still produce a surprise. The future of Mexican democracy may depend on maintaining a check on AMLO’s designs

[Body-by-Guinness]

Fills in some blanks re the various, competing Mexican cartels:

SWJ El Centro Book Review – CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel

John P. Sullivan

CJNG Quick Guide
Chris Dalby, CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel. Virtual: World of Crime, 2024 [ISBN:  978-9083423913 paperback, 978-9083423906 eBook, 170 Pages]

The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), or Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of Mexico’s major criminal cartels. It is locked into a major contest for dominance of Mexico’s illicit economy with the Sinaloa Cartel (Cártel de Sinaloa). Indeed this competition is increasingly global and involves numerous smaller conflicts with other rival cartels and gangs in Mexico and beyond. Both the CJNG and CDS, Mexico’s largest criminal groups, exercise territorial control and criminal governance and effectively rule over large segments of Mexico’s populace, economy (markets), and spaces. This places the CJNG in direct confrontation with its criminal rivals and the state in the areas it controls or seeks to control. This contest for power and profit is often punctuated by violence. It is also colored by myth and misunderstanding of the nature of these contests,

Chris Dalby, a seasoned journalist, formerly with InSight Crime, has analyzed Mexico’s criminal landscape along with its crime wars and criminal insurgencies for many years. Now Director of World of Crime, a think tank based in the Netherlands with a global virtual remit, has published a resource guide capturing the salient aspects of the CJNG story. The guide, CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel, is built upon years of field work, research, and reportage.

Early Days

After a brief introduction, the text is divided into thirteen substantiative chapters followed by a list of “essential resources.” Each chapter describes a distinct aspect of the CJNG’s activities, from their economic ventures to their threats and a description of their geographic reach.

The first topical chapter, “The CJNG’s Origins,” looks at the foundation of the CJNG in the Milenio Cartel under Armando Valencia Cornelio, briefly recounting the early links to the so-called Guadalajara Cartel under Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and influence of Pablo Escobar and the Colombian Medellín Cartel. These early seeds set the stage for the rise of “El Mencho” or Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes the CJNG’s founder and current leader. This emergence is punctuated by the rise of “avocadonomics” or the boom in avocados as a cash crop that became integral to Michoacán’s economy and ripe for exploitation by the CJNG.

The next chapter, “The CJNG’s Many, Many Wars,” recounts criminal conflicts with a number of groups, including the Cárteles Unidos and La Familia Michoacana in Michoacán, the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas and Veracruz, the Mezcales in Coloma, the Cártel de Santa Rosa de Lima (CSRL) in Guanajuato, and the Zetas Vieja Escuela in Tamaulipas. This is followed by “The Matazetas,” which examines the story of a counterforce to the Zetas that many report as a part of the emergence of the CJNG. Yet, the true story is more nuanced and complicated.

The Cult of El Mencho

The next chapter details the emergence of “The Cult of El Mencho.” Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka “Mencho,” is the notorious leader of the CJNG.  El Mencho eschewed the mantle of social bandit, cultivated by Sinaloa kingpin El Chapo Guzmán, and “Cultivated an aura of fear, devotion and anonymity.”(p. 50) This section recounts Mencho’s early years, when he was connected to the Valencia family and the Milenio cartel; his time in the United States (both in California and in federal prison in Texas); and his return to Mexico where he became a cop, before he reconnected with the Valencia Family and the Milenio Cartel in time for the war with Los Zetas.

The Rise and Fall of the Cuinis and the Next Generation

The legacy of "Los Cuinis” is told in “The Rise and Fall of the Cuinis” which describes the symbiotic relationship between the CJNG and the Cuinis, led by Mencho’s brother-in-law known as “El Cuini.” This group, or faction, were dominated by the González Valencia family. Money laundering, funding expansion into the global methamphetamine trade were hallmarks of the Los Cuini era. After several notable arrests the Cuini power faded. The next chapter “The Next Generation of CJNG Leaders” assesses potential successors to “El Mencho” amid speculation that he is seriously ill and dying or already dead (his actual fate is unknown at the time of this book’s release and this review).

Money Laundering and Branding

“The CJNG’s Money laundering Empire” looks at the financial services component of the CJNG. From front businesses to real estate transaction, trade-based money laundering helps convert the profits from the global meth, fentanyl, and heroin trade into portable capital. The early rise of this business center to its connections to the Chinese shadow banking system and use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is briefly reviewed before turning to public affairs. “The CJNG’s Gift for Public Relations” examines the CJNG’s use of social media—including generating a fan base and associated trademark “purple devil” (😈) emoji—and propaganda are described emphasizing “narcoculture,” machismo, hyper-violence, battle images, and cults of personality to reinforce the CJNG brand.

Synthetic Pharma, Other Profit Centers, and Geospatial Reach

The next two chapters focus on the CJG trade in illicit pharma or drugs. “The CJNG and Methamphetamine” sets the stage with a description of the cartel’s innovation in producing its own product through a network of meth labs to form a power base. The global connections derived from this endeavor were the foundation for the next phase, fentanyl. “The CJNG and Fentanyl” describes the growth and current state of the fentanyl trade and its impact in Mexico. The next chapter, “How Else Does the CJNG Make Money?” Looks at the Avocado trade, Extortion, Fuel Theft (Huachicoleo), Illegal Fishing, Illegal Logging and Timber Trafficking, Migrant Smuggling, and Timeshare Fraud. The final two chapters” “Where is the CJNG in Mexico” and “The CJNG Across the Americas” briefly ok at the CJNG presence in each of Mexico’s states and Mexico City (CDMX) and the United States, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guatemala. The text ends with a short list of reference resources.

Assessing the Text

CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel is a quick read. While it is not a comprehensive account of the CJNG, an exhaustive investigative account, and in-depth ethnology or political economic assessment, it provides an accessible, synopsis of the CJNG’s rise, operational context, and geographic reach. While specialists may miss detailed accounts of social network analysis and conflict analysis, both specialists and generalists will find this an accessible and succinct overview of the CJNG’s major characteristics. Journalists and senior leaders seeking to prepare themselves to understand current events and more detailed research and operational analyses will likely find this a good primer or “essential A–Z” on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s background. The author states that this is the first of many potential World of Crime “quick guides” with future volumes on the Tren de Aragua an the Chapitos in preparation. I look forward to seeing those released as companions to this text.

Categories: El Centro
About the Author(s)

John P. Sullivan
Dr. John P. Sullivan was a career police officer. He is an honorably retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, specializing in emergency operations, transit policing, counterterrorism, and intelligence. He is currently an Instructor in the Safe Communities Institute (SCI) at the Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California. Sullivan received a lifetime achievement award from the National Fusion Center Association in November 2018 for his contributions to the national network of intelligence fusion centers. He completed the CREATE Executive Program in Counter-Terrorism at the University of Southern California and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the College of William and Mary, a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research, and a PhD from the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). His doctoral thesis was “Mexico’s Drug War: Cartels, Gangs, Sovereignty and the Network State.” He can be reached at jpsullivan@smallwarsjournal.com.

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/swj-el-centro-book-review-cjng-quick-guide-mexicos-deadliest-cartel

[Crafty_Dog]

Could Mexico’s Election Spring a Surprise?
AMLO’s ruling party is trying to demoralize supporters of the opposition candidate and convince them to stay home.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
May 26, 2024 2:36 pm ET


The “Pink Tide” demonstrations that swept Mexico on May 19 weren’t a popular cry for socialism, as the name might imply. Quite the opposite. The hundreds of thousands who turned out in urban plazas across the nation were part of a nonpartisan movement fighting to preserve the independence of the National Electoral Institute. The INE, as it is known, referees political campaigns and elections. The Mexico City government estimated the crowd in the capital’s main square at 95,000.

The citizen drive to support INE autonomy is pushback against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been trying to bring the electoral body under control of the executive and stifle its impartiality. The INE’s signature shade is pink. So movement organizers appropriated the color as a marketing tool. Of note is how those marches also turned into rallies for opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Gálvez, who will square off against Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate of Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party, on June 2.

Ms. Sheinbaum was handpicked by the president, who is known as AMLO, and is a symbol of continuity with his agenda. Her threats to use executive power to crush pluralism and grab control of the Supreme Court frighten Mexican democrats. If she succeeds, the country could revert to a one-party state, as it was during the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Ms. Gálvez is the undisputed underdog in this race. Since before the campaign officially began, Mr. López Obrador has been running up the fiscal deficit, using government programs to throw money at voters and the economy. He also has used his bully pulpit to campaign for Ms. Sheinbaum, in violation of electoral law.

To win, Ms. Gálvez needs voter turnout in the mid-60% range, which is why the government wants to paint a picture that the race is over and going to the polls is a waste of time for her supporters. Some polling companies, allegedly financed by Morena or its supporters, happily assist by producing household surveys that show the challenger 20 points behind with no chance.

Skepticism is in order. Even if pollsters don’t have bias, it’s important to keep in mind that while household surveys are traditionally a good measurement, today they are notoriously unreliable because the middle class generally refuses to participate.

Meantime, daily polls released by the polling company Massive Caller last week showed the two candidates in a statistical tie with around 12% undecided. Massive Caller uses a technique of random dialing that has been much more accurate than traditional polling methods in recent state elections. The polling company Mexico Elige, which uses social media, also has the race within the margin of error.

Debates over polling methodology remain unsettled. But another way to sniff out voter intention is to look at top priorities. In a national survey published by Mexico Elige earlier this month, nearly 27% of respondents said the No. 1 problem facing the country is public safety. The second most popular response to the question was corruption, and the third was violence. In fourth place was narcotics trafficking. Together these four issues, all dependent on the rule of law, made up 72% of responses. This suggests wide dissatisfaction with how the government has handled one of its most important roles and an appetite for change.

A lack of trust on the part of voters that pollsters will keep their responses confidential may also distort polling results. Mr. López Obrador remains personally popular. Going against him, or his intended successor, is politically incorrect in some quarters. Mexicans who receive subsidies from the government are likely to be more fearful than others that by expressing an intention to vote for Ms. Sheinbaum’s rival, they could get cross-ways with the local Morena chieftain and lose their benefits. A significant shy vote that turns out on election day could be part of a Gálvez surprise.

In 2018, when Mr. López Obrador won with 53% of the vote, low turnout played a big role in his victory. He was helped by the split in the opposition vote between center-right candidate Ricardo Anaya from the National Action Party and the PRI candidate, Jose Antonio Meade. But when the incumbent PRI government threw mud at Mr. Anaya late in the race, alleging that he was corrupt, voters became discouraged. In many places in northern Mexico, which would have benefited from Mr. Anaya’s agenda of free trade and the rule of law, turnout hovered in the low 50% range. A rerun of voter malaise, this time because Ms. Gálvez is given up as a lost cause, would help Ms. Sheinbaum.

That’s what happened in the race for governor in the very important state of Mexico last year. Poll aggregators showed a 15-percentage-point lead for the Morena candidate, suggesting a blowout. Yet Morena won by only 8, sparking speculation that the overly grim forecast had pushed down participation (49%) and created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If that psychology prevails in the presidential race, and voter turnout is low, it will be good for Ms. Sheinbaum and Morena. But not so good for Mexico.

[ccp]

" Can she save the country from cartel violence? "

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ar-BB1no63f

My short answer is NO.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mexico Ruling Party’s Election Sweep Spooks Markets
Peso tumbles as result paves way for constitutional overhauls that opponents say risk weakening Mexico’s democracy
By
David Luhnow
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José de Córdoba
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Anthony Harrup
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Updated June 3, 2024 3:49 pm ET





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Mexico’s ruling party swept the elections on Sunday, raising concerns that the nationalist movement could weaken the country’s democracy and have an increased role in the economy. Photo: Raquel Cunha/Reuters

MEXICO CITY—The wide margin of victory by Mexico’s ruling party sparked concerns Monday that the nationalist movement now has the power to push through constitutional changes that opponents say risk weakening the country’s democracy while raising the role of the state in the economy.

The Mexican peso slid more than 4% on Monday to 17.72 against the dollar, its weakest level since November. The currency is one of the most widely traded in emerging markets and acts as a barometer of how investors view the country’s economic health. The stock market’s benchmark IPC index fell 6%, its biggest percentage drop since March 2020, the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.

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The peso began its retreat as results from the election showed the ruling Morena party winning at least a two-thirds majority in the lower house—easing its ability to push through constitutional overhauls without opposition support.

The declines of the currency and the stock market provide “evidence of fear about Mexico and possible capital outflows,” said Gabriela Siller, head of analysis at Mexico’s Banco Base, a local bank.

The scale of the ruling party’s electoral victory on Sunday was a surprise in Mexico—a major U.S. economic partner and the top source of imports to the U.S.—but also a source of illegal immigration and drugs.

An election widely seen as a referendum on outgoing leader President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s policies has suddenly become an unexpected opportunity to pass a set of proposed constitutional changes that would be the biggest overhaul to Mexico’s political system since it became a democracy in 2000.

The proposed initiatives include allowing for the direct election of judges, slimming down congress, and eliminating the autonomous election agency. It would also boost the government’s role in the energy sector.

Mexico’s ruling party could fall a few seats short of the two-thirds threshold in the senate, but most analysts said it would come close enough to make it relatively easy to pass its agenda. The changes risk concentrating power in the ruling party, which will already be stronger from its resounding win, analysts say.

“We’re now firmly in the territory of one-party rule in Mexico,” said Duncan Wood, a senior adviser to the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “Not just the presidency and Congress, but across the country. It’s an absolute tidal wave.”

López Obrador and many others in Morena have argued that the proposed changes won’t hurt Mexico’s democracy but will improve how it works. The president has long accused judges, for instance, of responding to the interests of wealthy business leaders, and says giving people the power to vote for judges will make them more accountable.


President Andrés Manuel López Obrador watched the election results being announced. PHOTO: MEXICO PRESIDENCY/REUTERS
After her big win, ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum sought to address concerns that such a substantial victory by one party would damage the country’s democracy. “We are democrats and out of conviction would never be an authoritarian or repressive government,” she told a cheering crowd in central Mexico City. She vowed to respect private investment, and keep fiscal discipline and central bank independence.

Sheinbaum, who will be Mexico’s first female and Jewish president and won nearly 60% of the vote, has the strongest mandate of any recent Mexican leader. Her margin of roughly 30 points over her nearest rival would be the largest in a presidential vote since the 1982 election, when Mexico still was a single-party state. Pre-election polls gave her a 20-point lead.

The ruling Movement of National Regeneration, known as Morena, won seven of nine gubernatorial elections, including in the capital, Mexico City, and 253 of Mexico’s 300 directly elected congressional districts.

The deep victory raised a prospect that had largely been dismissed before the vote: That López Obrador, who is legally barred from reelection, can pass his agenda before stepping down in October.

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In the past few years, opposition lawmakers and the Supreme Court have blocked most of López Obrador’s deeper changes, frustrating the president, who blames Mexican elites for barring overhauls that he said would help the country’s poor.


The Mexican currency began its slide as results indicated a substantial majority for the ruling Morena party. PHOTO: JEOFFREY GUILLEMARD/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Now, the popular leader may get his chance. López Obrador will still be in power for just over a month after the new Congress takes office in late August, giving him a window to pass the changes that had been stalled or blocked. He submitted the initiatives to Congress earlier this year, but legislators haven’t voted on the proposals because it seemed unlikely they would clear opposition objections. That appears set to change.

“September will be the most revolutionary month that Mexico has experienced in this century,” said Antonio Ocaranza, a Mexican political analyst. “López Obrador will still be president and he’ll have a Congress that owes him their jobs.” If López Obrador doesn’t get all of his initiatives passed, Sheinbaum may pass them after she takes power, he said.

At a Monday morning press conference, López Obrador said he would confer with Sheinbaum about pushing forward with his proposed constitutional changes in September when the new legislators are seated. He said he didn’t want to impose anything on the president-elect.

“I do believe that the the issue of judicial reform should be introduced, because it’s not possible to have a judicial power that isn’t at the service of the people, that is, as it’s widely known, at the service of a minority, and at times, in the service of white-collar organized crime,” he said.

Sunday’s lopsided victory reflected resounding support for López Obrador, a nationalist who won power in 2018 on an anticorruption platform. The former Mexico City mayor slimmed down the federal bureaucracy and spent the money on cash handouts for the poor, making him enormously popular. Pollster Morning Consult currently has the politician tied in second place as most popular president in the world, behind India’s Narendra Modi and level with Argentina’s Javier Millei.

There was a “big disconnect between elite narrative and the reality on the ground in Mexico,” said Ernesto Revilla, chief Latin America economist at Citi. Polarized politics and fragmented information sources meant that many analysts “underestimated the extent of support for the populist regime” as the López Obrador administration reduced poverty and inequality and increased cash transfers and real wages, making Morena “indomitable in this election,” Revilla said.


A factory in Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico. PHOTO: EYEPIX/ZUMA PRESS
While the Mexican nationalist built his career by railing at Mexican elites and vowing a deep transformation of the country on behalf of the poor, many of the more dire predictions at the outset of his presidency didn’t come to pass. He kept Mexico’s economy open to trade and government finances on a fairly stable footing, giving a boost to the peso. Mexico’s economy has also posted relatively strong growth the past two years and kept its investment-grade ratings.

But the question all along is what would happen if López Obrador, or the party he created, had the power to reshape the country along the lines it wants—which most analysts say looks more like the single-party state of the former ruling PRI party in the 20th century, with an all-powerful president and a bigger role for the state in the economy. López Obrador began his political career in the nationalist PRI, splitting from it in 1988.

“Morena has now become the new incarnation of the PRI,” said Luis de la Calle, a Mexico City consultant and former negotiator of the original free-trade treaty between the U.S, Canada and Mexico.

The constitutional changes could have far-reaching consequences for Mexico’s democracy. They would replace the autonomous election agency, overhaul the judicial branch by allowing a popular vote for judges, including those for the Supreme Court, eliminate autonomous regulators for certain industries such as telecommunications and transfer their functions to government ministries, and undo the changes in the electricity industry that promoted private power generation, giving the state utility a bigger role. They would also reduce the number of members in Mexico’s lower and upper houses and cut funding of political parties.


President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he intends to retire from political life once he steps down from the presidency at the end of September. PHOTO: ISAAC ESQUIVEL/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Some bills are perceived as leading to institutional erosion and weakening the current checks and balances; and several are not viewed as market friendly,” said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs. “With full control of the House, and for practical purposes likely the Senate as well, the probability that a significant part of this broad agenda is approved increased significantly.”

Ramos said the ruling party would have a clear two-thirds majority in the lower house, and be very close to one in the Senate—close enough to easily clinch a few votes or defections. “For all practical purposes, they have a two-thirds majority in both houses,” he said.

Sheinbaum has been a loyal acolyte of the president. She has enough of a mandate to try to prevent some of López Obrador’s more controversial changes even before she takes power, but it remains to be seen whether she will, said the Wilson Center’s Wood.

At the press conference on Monday, López Obrador reiterated his intention not to engage in politics once he steps down from the presidency at the end of September. But despite his promise to retire from political life, some analysts say that Sheinbaum would have a difficult time asserting herself over the popular current leader, moving to do so only gradually.

[Crafty_Dog]

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Mexico Hands More Power to the Left
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena party win big. The peso and stock market fell in response.
By
The Editorial Board
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June 3, 2024 5:55 pm ET




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Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum PHOTO: HECTOR VIVAS/GETTY IMAGES
Who says democratic landslides aren’t possible anymore? Mexico on Sunday delivered one for the ruling left-wing Morena party and its presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum. The question is whether this democratic sweep will create an opening for anti-democratic constitutional changes.

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Ms. Sheinbaum is a protégé of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mexican presidents can’t run for re-election, but AMLO remains popular. Real wages have grown and the peso has strengthened as the country has become a mecca for manufacturing aimed at the North American market. AMLO has also spent lavishly on entitlements for the poor and middle class.

With 99% of the vote counted, the former mayor of Mexico City had won 60% against former National Action Party senator Xochitl Gálvez with 28%. The sweeping victory also appears to have given Morena close to two-thirds majorities in the legislature.

This means Morena has the votes to pass AMLO’s constitutional amendments designed to consolidate the party’s power at the Supreme Court and eliminate independent regulatory bodies. Because the new Congress takes its seats a month before AMLO leaves office on Oct. 1, he could push for passage before the end of his term. That prospect explains the peso’s 4% decline on Monday, while the Mexican stock market was down some 5.7%.

Markets will be looking to see which Claudia Sheinbaum emerges in office—the ideologue or a more pragmatic deal-maker. Mr. López Obrador and Ms. Sheinbaum are left-wing populists who want to put the state at the center of the economy. She has a doctorate in energy engineering, and during the early 1990s lived in the San Francisco area.

In her acceptance speech, Ms. Sheinbaum took a conciliatory tone, promising to “respect business freedom and facilitate with honesty private investment, national and foreign.” While charting her own course, Ms. Sheinbaum will face problems left behind by AMLO. The public-health system is broke and there’s a large fiscal deficit. Pemex, the state-owned oil company, has some $103 billion in debt outstanding and owes suppliers more than $20 billion.

Ms. Sheinbaum has promised to put the poor first, but that means Mexico’s economy will need to keep growing. Her challenge will be to square her socialist bona fides, and her history of climate activism on the United Nations climate panel, with policies that attract foreign capital to expand prosperity.

An early test will be whether Ms. Sheinbaum continues AMLO’s campaign to have government control electricity generation and oil exploration. Shutting out private investors violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the revised free-trade pact signed in 2018. President Biden has failed to enforce the new agreement’s energy chapter, but a second Trump Administration probably would.

She will also have to address the collapse of internal security. Cartels control large parts of the country, and extortion is routine. Human smugglers run the caravans that bring migrants by the millions to the U.S. border. Recovering the authority of the state won’t be easy. But a closer relationship with U.S. law enforcement could help.

The U.S. has a huge stake in a stable, prospering Mexico that continues to expand its middle class. The drug trade won’t subside as long as demand in the U.S. stays high, but neither country can afford to let trans-national cartels dominate the border and murder with impunity. Americans wish the new President well for the sake of her country and our own.

[Crafty_Dog]

third

Mexico After AMLO: A One-Party State?
For six years, other institutions have limited the socialist president’s damage.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
June 2, 2024 1:00 pm ET



Claudia Sheinbaum campaigns for the Mexican presidency in Mexico City, Mexico, May 29. PHOTO: CARLOS TISCHLER/ZUMA PRESS
Mexicans vote in presidential and legislative elections Sunday. Eight Mexican states, plus Mexico City, hold gubernatorial contests. We may not know the results until late in the evening. But it isn’t too early to consider the economic and political challenges the nation will face under a new federal government.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s successor will inherit a stable economy where firms are profitable and manufacturing is expanding. Mexico has a rising middle class and its enviable demographics, with a median age of 30, are a plus. A nearshoring trend and the wide interest-rate spread between the dollar and the peso have helped strengthen the Mexican currency to levels not seen in a decade.

But warning lights are also flashing. Among the biggest challenges is a weak rule of law. Cartel terror, extortion and human trafficking have grown worse during Mr. López Obrador’s government, and public trust in institutions, including the military, has deteriorated. Political violence is also on the rise. The new president will be under pressure to confront criminality. It could get bloody.

Claudia Sheinbaum, a former head of the Mexico City government and a member of Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party, is the favorite to become the next president. Her victory would suggest further deepening of AMLO’s vision for the country. Here it’s important to note that Mexico’s economic gains in the past six years have come despite AMLO, not because of him. He opposes free-market economics. During his presidency he’s been beavering away at what he calls the “fourth transformation,” which would give the Mexican state a large role in the economy and consolidate power in the executive. Think the heyday of the Institutional Revolutionary Party 50 years ago.

That Mr. López Obrador wasn’t able to return Mexico to the authoritarianism of the 1970s is a credit to competing institutions. The Supreme Court and the National Electoral Institute defended pluralism and blocked AMLO’s most egregious attempts to grab power. It’s also a credit to those who opened the economy. He could hardly afford to strangle democratic capitalism before he changed the rules of the game. His surrogate would have to win the next election.

The socialist Ms. Sheinbaum, if she wins, is expected to champion the constitutional reforms that AMLO has articulated as necessary to achieve his back-to-the-future Mexico. These include the direct election of Supreme Court justices, the end of proportional representation for congressional seats, and the elimination of the Federal Economic Competition Commission and the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Protection of Personal Information.

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A President Sheinbaum would need two-third majorities in both chambers to pass those amendments, which means that there’s a lot at stake in the congressional races. If Morena gets close to the number of seats it needs, Ms. Sheinbaum might try to negotiate with another party for the rest of the votes.

The reforms would be bad for Mexico, although in the short run things might not change much. The frog would boil slowly.

Opposition candidate Xochitl Gálvez ran against dismantling institutional checks and balances. If she wins, she has promised to govern with republican values. If she loses but makes it a close race, it will be more difficult for Morena to create a one-party state.

During the campaign both candidates made entitlement promises that will be a drag on growth. But the new president and Congress won’t have it easy because Mr. López Obrador, with Morena coalition majorities in Congress, ran up spending ahead of the election. Total government spending will be 27% of gross domestic product this year, the highest since President José López Portillo (1976-82). AMLO’s treasury says there will be a 5.9% fiscal deficit, which would be the largest since 1990, the earliest year for which the treasury provides the data. The treasury forecasts a return to a 3% fiscal deficit in 2025 but that depends on a combination of austerity and growth. The new president will have to tighten belts to reverse the worsening trend.

Last month Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at the Baker Institute, tweeted that Mr. López Obrador’s Dos Bocas refinery project “will go down in the annals of the oil industry as one of the most disastrous investment decisions in history. The cost is already $17 billion, and it is not yet finished.” Completion of the tourist train on the Yucatán Peninsula is also delayed, and its $28 billion price tag is nearly four times its original budget.

Electricity shortages caused by AMLO’s decision to block new private investment in power could put a damper on the nearshoring boom. Despite its geographical advantage, Mexico won’t be a good destination for capital without cheap, plentiful energy.

The good news is that the new president inherits a democratic republic with lots of potential. The open question is whether Mexicans can keep it.

[Crafty_Dog]

Fourth

Morena Sweeps Mexico's General Election, Portending Policy Continuity and Possible Constitutional Reforms
8 MIN READJun 3, 2024 | 21:40 GMT





Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum gives a speech after the first results released by the election authorities show that she is leading the polls by a wide margin on June 3, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico.

Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum gives a speech after the first results released by the election authorities show that she is leading the polls by a wide margin on June 3, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico.
(Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

In Mexico, the ruling Morena party's victories in the presidential and legislative elections set the stage for policy continuity focused on poverty reduction and the expansion of government control over energy. Should Morena also achieve a qualified majority in both legislative chambers, the party could pass controversial constitutional reforms that decrease government checks and balances, while increasing corruption risks for businesses. On June 2, Mexico's National Electoral Institute (INE) announced that the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum won Mexico's presidential election with 58%-60% of the vote. Meanwhile, Xochitl Galvez of the opposition National Action Party received approximately 26% of the vote, while Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizens' Movement party received approximately 10% of the vote. Both Galvez and Maynez have conceded defeat. Morena also retained its absolute majority in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, alongside the allied Labor Party and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, though it is unclear whether the Morena bloc achieved the qualified (two-thirds) majority required to pass constitutional reforms without needing votes from the opposition. Sheinbaum, who will be Mexico's first female president, is set to take office on Oct. 1 for a single six-year term (Mexico's Constitution does not allow presidents to run for re-election). The new legislative session will begin one month earlier on Sept. 1.

President-elect Sheinbaum is a climate scientist and was formerly the head of the Mexico City government from 2018 to 2023. She is a close ally of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who supported her campaign.

Compared with other Mexican parties, Morena is a relatively young political party, with Lopez Obrador founding the party in 2011 after leaving the Party of the Democratic Revolution. Morena has been Mexico's ruling party since Lopez Obrador won the 2018 presidential election with 53% of the vote, lower than Sheinbaum.

A qualified majority requires 334 out of 500 legislators in the Chamber of Deputies and 86 out of the 128 legislators in the Senate. Preliminary results indicate that Morena is within 10 seats of achieving qualified majorities in both houses.

Morena's victory highlights widespread approval for Lopez Obrador's policies, despite tensions between him and electoral institutions and the judicial system, as well as shortcomings in his anti-crime policies. The electoral success of Sheinbaum, who modeled much of her campaign on Lopez Obrador's policies and the wider Morena party, demonstrates that Lopez Obrador and his agenda retain high popularity at the end of his six-year term. This popularity is partially the result of broader popular frustration with Mexico's formerly dominant political parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party, but is also due to the success of the Lopez Obrador administration's "Fourth Transformation" policies aimed at reducing poverty and economic inequality by expanding social programs and growing the Mexican economy. Lopez Obrador has been able to claim success in some parts of his policy platform, with the expansion of social programs in recent years, as well as the acceleration of nearshoring trends that have increased U.S.-Mexico trade. Still, Lopez Obrador's term has not been without controversy. His repeated efforts to eliminate or downsize the INE and recurrent political disputes with the Supreme Court over the body's rejection of some of his policies fueled accusations that he was attempting to weaken Mexico's democracy. He has also faced criticism for his "hugs not bullets" anti-crime policy, which seeks to combat the underlying drivers of crime (particularly poverty), with less of a focus on counter-crime operations targeting drug cartel leadership, as was common under previous Mexican administrations. Though Mexico's homicide rate has dropped slightly since Lopez Obrador took office, many attribute the persisting high levels of organized crime in the country to this policy. Opposition to Lopez Obrador has repeatedly triggered mass protests, with opposition groups organizing multiple demonstrations with participation in the tens of thousands in the first months of 2024.

Lopez Obrador's approval ratings peaked at 81% in early 2019 after taking office in December 2018. While his approval ratings have since dropped, they have remained around 66%, including in recent months.

Mexico's National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (an independent federal institution) reported in 2023 that its preferred measurement for the country's poverty rate fell 5.6% from 2018 to 2022, with over 5 million people lifted out of poverty.
In 2023, Mexico reported an official homicide rate of 23.3 per 100,000 people, a drop from 25.8 per 100,000 people in 2018. However, disappearances — which are often not counted in these statistics — have increased, meaning the homicide rate is almost certainly a significant undercount. Furthermore, while some parts of the country experience low crime rates, some areas experience extreme levels of violence between rival cartels, including the Pacific coast state of Colima, which has reported homicide rates of over 100 per 100,000 people in the last year.

As president, Sheinbaum will largely maintain Lopez Obrador's policies, creating significant political continuity that will provide opportunities for companies expanding operations in the country, though her agenda may lead to some energy availability shortfalls and increased cartel violence. Sheinbaum's presidential victory and Morena's absolute legislative majority portends a continuation of many of the Lopez Obrador administration's policies, including a further expansion of social programs (such as free education, pensions and aid for impoverished communities), as the Mexican government continues to try to reduce the country's still-high rates of poverty and economic inequality. This will create policy stability for organizations considering Mexico for nearshoring, and such policies should continue to improve the development of human capital over time. Sheinbaum will also likely implement some tax incentives to continue to support nearshoring trends, particularly for areas of southern Mexico. Sheinbaum will expand electricity generation capacity while keeping the sector largely under government control, though she will almost certainly increase focus on renewable energy compared with Lopez Obrador, further increasing the country's investment attractiveness. For businesses, government control of electricity and fuel subsidies should prevent operating costs from increasing significantly. However, private investment in the sectors will decrease, potentially leading to a drop in generation capacity that would risk power outages. Amid increasing popular pressure for greater government efforts to combat crime, Sheinbaum will likely slightly deviate from Lopez Obrador, with increased operations targeting high-ranking cartel members. In the near term, this will risk triggering increased incidents of retaliatory violence that create safety threats, but this policy may ultimately help lower violence in states experiencing particularly severe inter-cartel conflict, including Colima and Guanajuato.

Sheinbaum has promised to expand investment in renewable energy and implement policies intended to decrease environmental damage, including stopping gas flaring and imposing stricter emissions standards. However, she has also promised to maintain support for state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, more commonly known as Pemex.

Throughout May 2024, an increase in electricity demand due to an unseasonable heat wave led to power outages in 20 of 32 Mexican states.

Should former U.S. President Donald Trump return to the White House in 2025, he would be highly likely to threaten tariffs on at least some Mexican exports to the United States. Negotiations for the automatic renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in July 2026 will likely be a particular flashpoint for regional trade tensions. Moreover, Trump's focus on curbing migration could also lead him to threaten to close the border if Mexico does not take more aggressive measures to stop migrants from moving north.

If Morena achieves a qualified majority in both legislative chambers, the party could pursue multiple constitutional changes that undermine Mexico's checks and balances and increase corruption risks for businesses. Morena needs a qualified majority to pass a package of constitutional reforms Lopez Obrador submitted in February. If the party does receive a two-thirds majority in both chambers, Lopez Obrador will be able to pass the reforms during the month between the start of the new legislative session on Sept. 1 and the end of his presidency on Oct. 1. However, a majority of states would still need to approve the package before their final implementation, which could take longer than a month. Among other things, the package of 18 reforms would eliminate several government bodies; while this policy would reduce some bureaucratic challenges and free up some government funds, it would also decrease government checks and balances and independent oversight, a move that could contribute to corruption risks in the long term.

 Other reforms would fold the National Guard into the military, which is controversial due to repeated incidents of military abuses over recent decades, and replace the INE with a smaller electoral body to which officials are democratically elected, which critics argue would undermine Mexico's democracy by making electoral authorities less independent. Even if Morena does not achieve the qualified majority, Lopez Obrador will likely push for most of the reforms in hopes that popular demand will successfully pressure some opposition politicians to vote for them. However, the government would likely be unable to pass the majority of the package in this scenario. If Lopez Obrador is unable to pass the reforms before his term ends, Sheinbaum will likely continue to push for most of the policies after she takes office, though she may abandon some of the particularly controversial policies such as the INE reform.

[Crafty_Dog]

June 5, 2024
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What the June 2 Elections Say About Mexico
Results suggest the country is growing more dynamic and responsive to voters.
By: Allison Fedirka
“The most boring election in Mexican history.” That’s how a prominent Mexican political activist described the country’s June 2 elections. Judging by the U.S. media reaction, however, the elections were anything but. Nearly 20,000 political offices were up for grabs, and there was extensive coverage of electoral violence and corruption in the lead-up to the vote. And, of course, the two leading candidates were women, so it was certain that Mexico would elect its first-ever female president. Other Latin American countries followed the events in Mexico closely, given its prominent role in the region, so the media fanfare throughout the Americas is reason enough to reflect on the political atmosphere in Mexico.

That the election was “boring” isn’t entirely without merit. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory was all but presumptive. Though the size of her projected lead varied from one polling agency to another, Sheinbaum consistently outperformed her nearest competitor, Xochitl Galvez, by about 15 points for the past six months.

However, the composition of the opposition parties and their candidates points to a dynamic moment in Mexican politics. One party, the PRI, dominated Mexican politics for much of the 20th century. Its main political rival was PAN, created in 1939. The PRI lost power in the 2000 presidential election to PAN candidate Vicente Fox. For the next 20 years, the office passed between these two parties. But then Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a member of the PRD-offshoot party known as Morena, won the presidency in 2018, signaling that Mexico may not be an absolute two-party state. (Sheinbaum is also a member of Morena.) The results from June 2 have only reinforced as much. The leading opposition candidate, Galvez, represented an alliance of Mexico’s three legacy parties (the aforementioned PRI, PAN and PRD) that reflects new lines of interest being drawn across the country. Moreover, presidential candidate Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizens’ Movement party received 10 percent of the popular vote without any affiliation to another party. His modest performance suggests the nascent emergence of yet another political force in the country.

Also interesting is how public concern over reliable election results has begun to influence electoral practices. Unlike in the United States, where exit polls and preliminary results are disseminated on a rolling basis well before the entire country finishes voting, Mexico’s electoral administrator, the INE, does not release results until after all the polling stations in the country have closed. Anyone who closely follows politics in the country can quote the election-day timeline like clockwork: Polls close at 6 p.m., initial estimates come out at 8 p.m., initial victory is declared around 10 p.m. Political parties, aware of the concerns this process raises, have responded in kind. Pro-Morena political analysts noted that the presence of foreign observers should validate results and assuage concerns of election fraud – perhaps to hedge against accusations of malfeasance, which their opposition counterparts accused Morena of long before June 2. And though Galvez has vowed to contest the results, they are extremely unlikely to be overturned.

Those results themselves have raised questions in some circles over how Sheinbaum will govern. It’s widely known that she is a political protege of Lopez Obrador, and there are concerns that he will lead from behind the scenes. That may seem like a silly concern; Sheinbaum has worked her way up the political ranks to become president, and people who do that tend not to do so only to defer to others. However, appearances matter in politics and can contribute strongly to the perception of legitimacy around a leader. Being seen as an extension of the previous president would undermine the new leader’s power.

Institutionally, the new government will enjoy stronger political support across the country than the previous administration. The governing Morena party won the governorship in 23 of 31 states as well as Mexico City. The party and its alliance members are poised to hold a majority in both the upper and lower houses of parliament. The exact number of seats per party is still being calculated, but the governing coalition stands to win a minimum of 346 seats in the lower house – well above the 334 seats necessary for a supermajority – and is projected to win anywhere from 76 to 88 seats in the upper house. (It needs 85 for a supermajority.) If it wins a supermajority in both houses, the government will have enough influence to change the constitution, if it so chooses.

Preliminary Results for Mexico's Senate & House

(click to enlarge)

Impressive as they are, Morena’s gains raise an existential question for Mexico. Some of the party’s more philosophical supporters argue that the divide between northern and southern Mexico is disappearing.

Party Affiliation of New State Governors in Mexico, 2024

(click to enlarge)

The argument suggests that government-backed projects like the Dos Bocas refinery and Mayan Train project have laid the groundwork for further development in the south that would put the historically poorer regions closer to the north. Even if that were true, it would take longer than a single six-year presidential term, but the possibility of changes of that magnitude being underway isn’t something to ignore because it would fundamentally change how Mexico can operate as a country and, by extension, how it interacts with the rest of the world.

That raises the obvious question of how the new government will affect North America, if at all. Some believe that it risks alienating the United States. But Sheinbaum has indicated that she understands that the U.S.-Mexican relationship is a marriage where divorce is not an option. Many of her key advisers in international affairs have strong backgrounds in trade, have worked in international organizations like the United Nations, and have strong affiliations with moderate U.S. think tanks, all of which suggest an inclination toward or compatibility with working with the U.S.

While it may not change much in the United Stattes, Sheinbaum’s administration may be more effective in Central America. Migration, for example, remains just as big a political issue in Mexico as it is in the U.S., albeit for different reasons. There is a strong need and political will to alleviate the underlying pressures that lead to Central American migration.

The Mexican political system appears to be growing more dynamic and responsive to new electoral concerns and voices throughout the population. And the new government finds itself in a position where it may be able to lay the groundwork for dramatically reshaping Mexico. We can’t say whether it will succeed but can say it won’t be boring.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRaJldFTJ1Y

[Crafty_Dog]

(1) GOSAR: CARTELS ARE A NATIONAL PANDEMIC FUELED BY BORDER CRISIS: During a House Resources Committee hearing, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said cartels “moved from a southern border nuisance to a nationwide pandemic.”

“We have a war going on U.S. soil,” and cartels are taking advantage of a “jurisdictional loophole” while the U.S. Attorney is not taking action on criminal complaints, Fort Belknap Police Chief Joshua Roberge said.

According to former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Stacy Zinn, fentanyl was the linchpin for cartels on reservations to go from small-scale to overt activity.

Why It Matters: Overt cartel activity, facilitated by fentanyl smuggling and trade, is a major domestic disruption and a boon to China’s strategy to destabilize the United States. The cartels are using tribal lands as bases of operation due to legal loopholes that experts say prevent effective enforcement, and when arrested and deported, they can cross the disrupted southern border using a new identity.

Chinese nationals, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are intimately involved with cartel operations through both money laundering and facilitating the fentanyl trade. The CCP is likely facilitating this domestic disruption through ties to Chinese criminal organizations. – R.C.