Mexico & Nafta - January 2009 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Two senior US policymakers have spoken out about the threat to the US posed by the Mexican government's war against drug gangs. The first policymaker to speak out was a retired General, Barry McCaffrey, formerly President Bill Clinton's anti-drugs czar. He made some outspoken comments about the security situation in Mexico at what was supposed to be a confidential, top-level, seminar in Mexico City on 6 and 7 December. McCaffrey's comments were widely leaked, and effectively endorsed on 7 January, when Stephen Hadley, President George W Bush's National Security Adviser, gave a public briefing on security issues facing the US as the Bush administration hands over to the incoming Barack Obama team.

A third indication of US worries about Mexico was the announcement on 7 January that it had handed over another US$99m in military aid under the Iniciativa Mérida package. This money will be spent on helicopters and scanners and sensors for the army. The US had previously provided US$197m of the US$400m promised for 2009 under the Iniciativa Mérida.

Hadley's formal tour d'horizon speech, given at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, barely touched on Mexico (or, indeed, the Western Hemisphere), but dwelt on the situation in Europe, the Middle East, Iran and North Korea. In reply to a question from the floor, however, Hadley was highly revealing about US thinking on Mexico.

Hadley said: “I think [the threat from organised crime in Mexico] is a real challenge for the new [US foreign policy and security] team_if you talk to Mexican authorities, they feel very much under threat. _The way to understate it is to say it is a terrorism_[or] narco-trafficking problem. I think a better way to see it is that it is a potential threat to the future of a democratic Mexico. And I think if you listen to President Calderón, that's how he sees it. It is very much the kind of threat that President Uribe faced in Colombia". “There are things we can do," Hadley continued in his answer, “and the Mérida Initiative has a long list of training, equipment, and other things we can provide to make Mexican authorities more effective in dealing with this problem."

Hadley hinted, however, that US policymakers were not sure that Calderón's strategy of using the army as an auxiliary police force was the correct one. In Colombia, the war against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) was waged by the army, with heavy US support. What is significant is that both Hadley and McCaffrey indicated that they understood that Calderón did not have a mandate to introduce a Mexican version of Plan Colombia.

Hadley said: “The real question for the Mexican authorities and for their politics[is]: Is the level of effort and commitment they are making proportional to the threat that the problem_poses to the future of that government? And then the question for us is, are we doing all we can to support them, to make them more capable and more effective? That in itself is a difficult issue for Mexico, given the history between the US and Mexico. And I think they have been quite courageous, and it's an indication of the measure of seriousness with which they view the problem is that they are willing to consider a kind of cooperation with the US that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago."

Hadley's suggestion is that Mexico and the US should do what President Bill Clinton started in Colombia and was continued under Presidents Bush and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. “Democratic societies do not need to give in to these narco-terrorists, “ Hadley said. “It's a long fight. It requires a commitment. It requires help. But I think the lesson from Colombia is that these fights can be won, and we need to then help Mexico to win its fight, as well."

Hadley's comments about the threat to the US from gangsters in Mexico were trailed by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) annual report, published on 15 December [WR-08-50]. The NDIC, which is part of the US Department of Justice, claimed that Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations (DTOs) were the main criminal threat to the US.  

A former Mexican foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, writing in one of Mexico City's main newspapers, Reforma, just before Hadley's comments at the CSIS, argued that the NDIC report had already had an effect on US perceptions of Mexico because so many US media outlets had begun to report sensationally on the bloody war against drug gangs in Mexico. Castañeda also drew attention to comments made by McCaffrey (now an adjunct professor of International Affairs at West Point, the US's Army's officer training college) at a recent, ostensibly private, seminar in Mexico on 7 and 8 December. McCaffrey's ominous comments (“Mexico is somewhat unstable, extremely violent_on the edge of an abyss") and conclusions from the seminar have leaked to the press.

McCaffrey argued that “the stakes [in the government's war against the gangs] in Mexico are enormous. We cannot afford to have a narco state as a neighbour. The incoming administration must immediately focus on the dangerous and worsening problems in Mexico which fundamentally threaten US national security. Before the next eight years are past the violent, warring collection of criminal drug cartels could overwhelm the institutions of the state and establish defacto control over broad regions of Mexico. A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result in a surge of millions of refugees crossing the US border to escape_Mexico is not confronting dangerous criminality: it is fighting for survival against narco-terrorism."

Castañeda's comment on McCaffrey's suggestion that the US should step up its aid to Mexico under Obama, is that Calderón does not have the political authority to accept such enhanced assistance unless Mexican voters' traditional suspicion of the US changes.

The difficulty for policymakers on both sides of the border is that the mid-term congressional elections in July 2009 may weaken President Calderón's position in congress. Although the ruling PAN narrowly retained the presidency, through Calderón, in July 2006, it has lost all but one of the important state and municipal elections held since then. In the run up to the mid-terms, the PAN is facing a nasty series of rows and potential splits. The polls point to a resurgence in support for the PRI, which is currently the third force (with 106 seats) in the 500-seat lower house of congress, even though it still runs 18 of the country's 32 states. The PRI's tradition has been to find common ground with all but its most committed enemies: a PRI win in July could open the way to negotiations with the gangs.

Weapons
Jeff Bingaman, a US Democrat senator from New Mexico, has tabled a bill in partnership with Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Republican senator from Texas, which authorises the government to spend US$30m on efforts to halt the flow of weapons from the US to Mexican gangs. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) admits that over 90% of the gangs' weapons come from the US.