The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, added this Sunday one more to the list of pending issues for his first day in the Oval Office, when he takes office at the head of the leading world power on January 20. ”All foreign gang members will be expelled and I will immediately designate the cartels [del narcotráfico] as foreign terrorist groups. I will do it immediately,” he declared during a forum of the ultraconservative non-profit organization Turning Point in Phoenix (Arizona), which is dedicated to spreading MAGA values. [Make American Great Again, devolvamos su grandeza a Estados Unidos] by American colleges and universities.
”We will unleash the full power of federal security forces: ICE, the Border Patrol, the narcotics agency [DEA] the intelligence community and [aplicaremos] financial sanctions to expel migrant criminal gangs who are murdering, raping and mutilating our citizens. “We will get rid of them (…) we will deport, dismantle and destroy that network that operates illegally on American soil,” Trump said in a speech cheered by hundreds of his followers.
It is not the first time that the president-elect paints an apocalyptic panorama that does not exactly correspond to reality to announce a tough line with Mexican drug traffickers and also with the authorities of the neighboring country. In this case, Trump was talking about the case of Aurora, a city in Colorado that became an example during his campaign of everything that, according to the Republican candidate, was going wrong in the United States in terms of security, under the presidency of Joe Biden. According to this exaggerated story, Aurora would be under the control of the criminal gang of Venezuelan origin Tren de Aragua.
Among the usual mix of bravado and disjointed messages, Trump surprised those who follow his rallies with a new announcement. “We are going to launch a campaign to raise awareness of how bad drugs are,” he promised. “They end your [buen] look, they ruin your skin and your teeth.” He did not say what exactly this campaign would consist of or what its cost would be, although he did affirm that his Administration would use “a lot of money,” and then clarify that it would not be that much, “comparatively.”
These statements were reminiscent of the highest moments of the war on drugs that President Richard Nixon launched in the seventies and that reached its peak in the eighties and nineties, with slogans as famous as “Just say no” of the first lady Nancy Reagan.
The hardest wing of the Republican Party has been asking for a couple of years to classify organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel or the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as terrorists, and also to apply the same medicine that the Islamic State (ISIS) tried in the Middle East. These staunch Trumpists welcome ordering selective attacks to decapitate these organizations, even though something like this is completely contrary to International Law, and would leave Mexico in a complicated position, as a victim of an invasion of its national sovereignty than it would otherwise have. difficult to defend itself without unleashing a serious crisis in the region.
The tariffs
In his speech in Phoenix, Trump also referred to the call he had with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum last November. It was after he threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada. In the case of the southern neighbor, he linked that threat to the demonstration that enough is being done to solve the problems of the border and drug trafficking.
This Sunday, the president-elect defined Sheinbaum as a “charming woman.” “I was very hard on Mexico. I spoke to the new president, a woman who was charming and wonderful, President Sheinbaum, a wonderful woman, but I told her: ‘You can’t do this to our country,’ Trump declared, referring to the fentanyl coming through the Southern border, and which in 2023 was the substance responsible for around 70,000 overdose deaths. “I have informed Mexico that this cannot continue,” he said. “There are many families destroyed and we are going to stop it. “We are not going to allow that to happen.”
It remains to be seen whether Sheinbaum will change the terms of the fentanyl discussion with the United States compared to his predecessor, who basically denied that the substance was produced in Mexico. The authorities of the North American country have insisted in their arguments on focusing on the demand of the Northern country as the root of the problem.
Among the rosary of other topics that Trump touched on, who turned his appearance into one of his classic rallies, with his dalliances, his exaggerations, his lies and his half-truths, the president-elect referred to the recent crisis in the Capitol that almost ended with the closure of the Government this Friday, and in which Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet and one of his most recent allies, intervened. In a series of messages on his social network, these two billionaires who are launching their friendship.
Trump said that the idea that he has “given up the presidency” is pure fiction and that, even if Musk wanted the job, it couldn’t be: the US Constitution requires that only a citizen born in the United States can run for president. Musk was born in South Africa. “It won’t be, I can guarantee you that,” he told the audience gathered in Phoenix. “I can be sure. Do you know why? Because he wasn’t born here.”
On the other hand, Trump intervened in a debate that was dormant on Saturday night: the Panama Canal. He threatened, in a message on his social network, Truth, to reaffirm US control over the infrastructure, and accused the Central American country of charging excessive fees to use the passage, which allows ships to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. He also warned that he would not let the channel fall into the “wrong hands,” in what could be read as a reference to possible Chinese influence over the channel. The Asian country neither controls nor administers it, although, according to Reuters, a subsidiary of CK Hutchinson Holdings, based in Hong Kong, manages two ports located at the Caribbean and Pacific entrances of the canal, respectively.
