Arms and “the man”

… or is it, when the shoe is on the other foot?

Jesús Esquivel in Proceso reports on the security negotiations between the United States and Mexico, which are hung up over something Mexfiles has been asking about for years… if the US can insist on “embedded agents” in Mexico, why can’t Mexico embed agents in the United States?

Loosely translated:

WASHINGTON (Process) .– “Reciprocity” is a keyword when it comes to negotionas between the United States and Mexico over Mexico’s approval for 12 visas for DEA agents to operate in this country. In return, Mexico wants 12 Mexican agents in the United States working to verify measures against arms trafficking, sources with the Bigen administrtion reveal.

“There is an impasse in the negotiations with the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on the case of the DEA agents,” a US Department of Justice official told Proceso.

Given the on-going negotiations in progress, the official requested anonimity, but admitted that the reciprocal visa approval was discussed turing the High Level Security Dialogue held Thursday (7 October), but that the discussion did not lead to anything.

“In the meeting with their counterparts in Mexico, the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, and the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, negotiated the issue of the visa of the DEA agents. There was no settlement and it was determined that negotiations will continue, ” the source stressed.

Following the arrest in the United States of Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the former Secretary of National Defense, last year (15 October 2020), the Mexican government cancelled the vista for 12 DEA agents. This scenario has been confirmed by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE).

Cienfuegos was arrested at the Los Angeles international airport, accused by the DEA of drug trafficking and collusion with a fraction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Although he was exonerated by the Justice Department and repatriated to Mexico, the consequences of the general’s case are latent and imply a high cost for the security interests of the United States.

“The Mexican government asks that, in order to authorize visas for DEA agents, the United State authorize 12 Secretariat of Security (and Citizen Protection) to collaborate in the fight against arms trafficking,” the American official says.

According to this version, the López Obrador government asks that Mexican agents be directly involved in the actions carried out by US agencies against arms tranfers to Mexico, specifically actions by the DEA, the FBI, the ATF ( Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service) or CBP (Office of Customs and Border Protection).

It only seems reasonable, given the United States is also the center of financing for the narcotics trade, that if they don’t want the narcos’ products, that Mexican SAT agents (the Fiscal Intelligence Unit) also be embedded in the US to look into those money laundering states like Biden’s own Delaware. 

Only fair, right?