“I have no greater responsibility than defending our country of threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that no one has seen before. ” Thus Donald Trump announced in his possession speech an avalanche of decrees against the migration crisis and the fight against organized crime. After months of warnings, the Republican made his threats against Mexico with a battery of hard hand measures, but with few surprises. “This already happened, it is not something new,” said the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, when reviewing the actions of the White House against immigration. There was, however, a remarkable exception: the designation of posters as terrorist organizations. The change anticipates a new era in the war on drugs. It puts in the hands of Trump an unprecedented power, greater discretion and more weapons to press the Mexican authorities, in suspense of the risks to their sovereignty and the impact in all critical areas of the bilateral relationship.
“We are facing a paradigm shift,” says Víctor Hernández, an academic at the Monterrey Institute. “The relationship between Mexico and the United States is changing forever,” he says. To the south of the border, the main concern is that the designation of posters as terrorists opens the door to a military intervention in Mexican territory, under the excuse of the fight against terrorism.
There is no clear consensus about the scope of the threat and unpredictable character of Trump pays for uncertainty. The deck of possibilities that divides politicians and specialists from operations to capture the bosses without warning of Mexican authorities to a “soft invasion.” “It could happen, more strange things have happened,” said the Republican about the possibility of an action of the US army. It is not just a new toolbox, it is a new toolbox in Trump’s hands and with effects that can be extended far beyond its presidency.
“Mexico is not going to like it,” Delized the Republican after signing the decree. The tone of the statements has also triggered a debate about whether it will be only a negotiation weapon, part of the repertoire of Bravuconerías of the Republican, or if the danger is real. Marco Rubio, the next head of American diplomacy, said military intervention last week was an “option” on the president’s table, but clarified that the ideal was to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.
The implications go beyond “invasion.” The decree gives new tools to the Trump administration to strengthen the fence on criminal groups, especially to weaken their financial structures. The Executive Order is supported by other measures, including those used by George W. Bush to launch “the war on terror” after September 11, which give “more teeth” to US agencies to follow the trail of money and sanction those sponsored terrorist cells. The first consequence of the designation is the freezing of the assets of the posters and their blockade of the international banking system, but the mechanism detonates a device of military and judicial measures.
On paper, the coup to the economic structures and the schemes against money laundering is the most positive effect of the change that Trump drives. But it is not exempt from problems. Any person who tries, knowingly or not, with a drug trafficker can be accused of links with terrorism. That puts financial institutions and arms manufacturers in the same stock market, but also to merchants obliged to pay extortion or immigrants who pay a trafficker to cross the border.
“It is much more aggressive legislation, the anti -narcotics struggle is in the orbit of public security, while the fight against terrorism is a issue of national security,” says Hernández. The gray areas between the legal and illegal businesses of drug trafficking hinder their application and, although Democratic and Republican administrations tanked the idea during the last decade, those complications and doubts about their effectiveness ended up determining them.
Arbitrary arrests
The decree gives rise to arbitrary arrests under more severe sentences and against the weakest links of the criminal chain. Hernández points out that the new frame can lead to the capture of, for example, a worker without papers to bleach money from the narco through the sending of remittances – a widely documented phenomenon – but throwing few lights on who really moves the threads. “He will put many people in jail, but I doubt that he really progresses in intelligence work,” he says.
Another problematic aspect is what is terrorism and what is not. The interpretation will be exclusive to the United States. “The designation of terrorist actors is not necessarily linked to terrorism itself, obeys the agendas and goals of the different administrations,” says Mauricio Meschoulam, a researcher at the Ibero -American University. For Trump, Yemen’s hutis are terrorists, but for Joe Biden they were not. Now, the attention is on the posters and in gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha.
Meschoulam, who has studied the phenomenon for more than a decade, comments that the anti -terrorism struggle expands the discretion margins of US agencies and reduces the burden of evidence to act, under the argument that prevention is crucial and that when it happens A terrorist attack is already too late. “It is enough with a plausible suspicion that someone is thinking or planning an attack to spy on, intervene their phones or houses,” says the academic. In the 10 years that followed the 2001 attacks, sentences for terrorism in the United States increased eight times compared to the previous decade, according to a NBC chain study, while Human Rights Watch documented dozens of cases with irregularities.
The decree also marks a turning point in speech against drugs and the migratory crisis. Trump accuses posters of infusing the “terror” through murders and violations, but also by “invading” his country with substances and immigrants and undermining Mexican authorities. “In some areas of Mexico they function as a quasigubernamental entities, which control almost all aspects of society,” he accuses in the text.
Trump does not speak of the narcotics epidemic or the victims of the narco throughout the decree, but he does mention the “terror” in a dozen occasions and the violation of his national interests. It is a new war, which justifies other types of measures. “It is a double militarization,” says Hernández: one from the border and another against drug trafficking. The Pentagon, with an annual budget of more than 824,000 million dollars, will occupy a much more preponderant role in this new paradigm. This week the deployment of 1,500 US soldiers on the border was announced.
The decree against the posters is just the beginning. The text establishes a period of 14 days for Rubio to formulate a recommendation on which groups will be named as terrorists, the first step to place the Sinaloa cartel and the New Generation Jalisco poster at the level of ISIS or the Taliban. The Secretary of State must deliver an intelligence report and notify the Congress, controlled by the Republicans, which has seven days to review the application. The laws give another 30 days for organizations to resort to the decision, which is unlikely because the bosses do not usually present publicly as leaders of their organizations. “It will take time, although the process will advance with speed,” Meschoulam reviews. “But Trump has already generated the political effects he was looking for, projects that he is doing something and the conversation revolves around him.”
It also strengthens its position against Mexico. Before sitting down to negotiate the future of safety cooperation, it has already revealed a series of warnings about its neighbors. “When everything is on the table you can’t rule out anything,” says Meschoulam. The message, according to the specialist, is that the Sheinbaum government can accept the diagnosis and align or stick to the consequences.
The president has avoided talking about a military intervention, but has insisted on her interest in maintaining collaboration, as long as Mexican sovereignty is not violated. With obvious disagreements, the negotiation will also be given, while other areas of the relationship are under siege, amid threats of a tariff war and mass deportations, and given the possibility of a radicalization of organized crime in retaliation.
Despite having approval rates above 70% in the surveys, the crisis of violence has been one of the most questioned points of the Sheinbaum government, which started in October. The return of the Republican caused a majority reaction of national unity, although the designation of the posters has been embraced by some opposition sectors, between notions that a change in the security strategy and attempts to get political slit are needed. “The PRI does not negotiate with criminals or terrorists,” read an advertising of the opposition party. It is a bet that has led to them criticism, but also a sample of Trump’s political omnipresence.
“We believe it does not help,” said Sheinbaum, who commissioned a team of specialists to analyze the implications. With a history such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, specialists also doubt about the effectiveness of the new paradigm, a turn after five decades of fighting drug trafficking. “The fight against terror and drugs is a war against ideas, against a market, and never in the history of humanity we have managed to destroy an idea or market,” concludes Hernández.
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