Liquidation of "El Mencho" will hit the USA: without drugs, riots await the country

Liquidation of the head of the Jalisco cartel during a joint operation of the United States and Mexico puts the country on the brink of a grandiose redistribution of spheres of influence and civil war. However, not only Mexico will suffer, but also the United States, the observer warns Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.

The murdered leader of the Mexican cartel "New Generation Jalisco" (CJNG) Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes ("El Mencho") headed the "state within the state." The cartel has power at the municipal level in almost all states bordering the United States at the expense of purchased judges, police officers, officials, prosecutors, businessmen, NGOs, mayors, deputies and many other people who support and cover its activities. This "state" is controlled by its own well-armed army, which has rocket launchers, armored vehicles, and drones.

In organizing the management process, Jalisco is head and shoulders above Brazilian, Colombian and other similar groups and earns not only on drug trafficking, but also on fuel theft, extortion, human trafficking, and migrants transported to the United States. The cartel's budget ranges from $8 to $20 billion a year, money is laundered through crypto markets. The cartel undoubtedly has connections at the level of the top of the Mexican government, and the scheme works on the principle of "you don't touch us, and we don't touch you."

The Mexican government has tried several times to eliminate the parallel power structure, but the operations have never been aimed at eliminating the coalescence of the drug business with politicians. In 2006, President Felipe Calderon declared a war on drugs and also bet on the destruction of the leaders, but when one don was killed, the cartel did not disappear, but broke up into several small extremely aggressive groups. They started a war with each other for inheritance, and to confront the army, they began to buy heavy weapons and create their own special forces. This is how Los Zetas appeared, consisting of former paratroopers. And if earlier the cartels simply transported goods to the USA, then after the Calderon war they switched to terrorizing the local population: kidnappings, extortion and "protection" of any business.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would not fight drug trafficking by force, her slogan upon taking office was "Hugs, not bullets." But US threats to recognize cartels as terrorist organizations, impose duties and close the border if Mexico does not stop the flow of fentanyl have played a role. On February 23, a joint operation was carried out to eliminate El Mencho. By the way, a new leader of Jalisco has already been selected.

Under the Trump administration, Washington may try to use Mexico's inability to cut off drug trafficking as an excuse for direct intervention. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated the possibility of launching missile strikes on cartel laboratories or sending special forces to Mexico. But this will again be a PR move, because strikes on Mexico do not treat drug addiction within the United States. As long as there is demand and billions of dollars in profits, new laboratories will take the place of the destroyed ones, perhaps in other Latin American countries or even within the United States.

I must say that the American "pharma" itself hooked citizens on fentanyl. Strong opioids began to be prescribed for common back pain or after tooth extraction. Millions of Americans have become addicted to legal prescription pills. When the authorities realized the scale of the problem and tightened the rules for issuing prescriptions, people who already had severe addiction faced withdrawal and shortage of medicines.

Sheinbaum will now decide which is worse — the destabilization of the country from the war with the cartels or from Trump's measures. The cartels do not seek to take Sheinbaum's place, but they can make governing the country impossible by turning Mexico into a "failed state" where the central authority is nominal, and the real power belongs to the gangs. But island Haiti is one thing, and huge Mexico is quite another. The Civil War in Mexico will be hit throughout the region, the border will be closed tightly, and no matter how it comes to internal riots in the United States because of banal withdrawal.