Mexico’s is ending the widespread access it gave to U.S. security agencies in the name of fighting drug trafficking and organized crime, but President Barack Obama said Tuesday he won’t judge the change until he meets this week with the country’s new leader.
Under President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office on Dec. 1, Mexico is ending direct sharing among law enforcement of resources and intelligence as the new government seeks to change its focus from violence to its emerging economy. It’s a dramatic shift from the policy under former President Felipe Calderon, who was lauded by the U.S. repeatedly for increasing cooperation between the two countries as he led an aggressive attack on Mexico’s drug cartels.
“In my first conversation with the president he indicated to me that he very much continues to be concerned about how we can work together to deal with transnational drug cartels,” said Obama, who is scheduled to arrive in Mexico on Thursday.
“I’m not going to yet judge how this will alter the relationship between the United States and Mexico until I’ve heard directly from them what exactly they are trying to accomplish,” Obama said in Washington.
The Mexican government said Monday all contact for U.S. law enforcement will now go through a “single door,” the federal Interior Ministry, the agency that controls security and domestic policy.
Many U.S. officials have speculated for months about likely changes in the security relationship under Pena Nieto, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has always favored central political and bureaucratic control.
Before, FBI, CIA, DEA and border patrol agents had direct access to units of Mexico’s Federal Police, army and navy and worked side by side with those units against drug cartels, including the U.S.-backed strategy of killing or arresting top kingpins. But the narcotics efforts lacked proper coordination.
Wearied by a six-year offensive against organized crime that took an estimated 70,000 lives and saw the disappearance of thousands more, Mexico has sought to change its message and image since Pena Nieto took office with an aggressive agenda for reform. That includes focusing on trade and increased economic integration with the U.S. as Mexico experiences a boom in manufacturing and worldwide buzz about its competitive edge over China and Brazil.
Bilateral trade amounted to nearly $500 billion last year, more than four times what it was 20 years ago, and Mexico is the most important export market for 22 of 50 U.S. states, both countries’ top diplomats said at an April 19 meeting preparing for Obama’s trip.
Pena Nieto’s election in July brought back the PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years with an autocratic style. They were voted out by disenchanted voters in 2000, an event seen as the opening of Mexican democracy.
Calderon, the former president, took office in 2006 after a disputed election and went to the United States immediately for help in fighting cartels, which he said threatened to take over all aspects of Mexican society. His aggressive attack on organized crime was supported by the U.S., which offered $1.9 billion for equipment and expertise under the Merida Initiative.
Under his six-year term, an unprecedented numbers of U.S. law enforcement agents began working in Mexico. U.S. drones spy on cartel hideouts, U.S. tracking beacons pinpoint suspect’s cars and phones and U.S. personnel train Mexican forces.
All U.S. agents living and working in Mexico get diplomatic status and are banned from carrying weapons.
Instead, they trace cellphone calls, read e-mails and study behavioral patterns of border incursions and follow smuggling routes using images from drones.
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