The Influence of the Mexican Cartels in the United States Visiting a tourist attraction in Mexico, tourists do not realize the gruesome reality that Mexican civilians face on an everyday basis. Dead bodies cover the streets, the echo of gun shots ring through the streets daily, and seeing the cartels terrorize businesses. The rise of Mexico’s violence in the past decade has marked the country and made its way to the United States. The United States has ignored the problem for many years, since they always referenced Mexico’s drug crisis as a non-emergent issue. In the past decade the U.S. government has seen an increase in violence and consumption of illegal drugs due to the Mexican cartels. This issue is becoming more impactful to the U.S. as they continue to ignore it. Mexico plays a significant role in the United States economy and politics, therefore the United States involvement will play a critical role in ending the drug cartel war in Mexico, by helping the people in Mexico, targeting …show more content…
With the fear the cartels have drilled in the civilians in Mexico, the United States has taken action to aid its neighboring country. In many cases Mexican civilians have had to move for their safety; “people move after their source of income has declined or become less sustainable as a result…of violence [from the cartels] and insecurity” (Albuja 29.) The Mexican military and the United States marines have come together to create safety to the civilians in Mexico. Both the Marines and the military govern over the streets of specific parts of the the country where it is most terrorized by the cartels. It has been proven that when the military or marines are making their round trips, the cartels leave. In order for the United States to help the civilians, they need to send more marines to help the Mexican military and drive through the streets of
In the Documentary “Mexico’s Drug Cartel War”, it displays a systematic approach of drugs and violence. The Drug War has been going on since the United States had a devastating impact on Mexico after the recession where it nearly doubled its interest payments. Mexico could not afford the interest payments but did have many agricultural imports. This created the trade between the United States and the land owned by the two million farmers. It spread the slums to Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez to work in maquiladoras (assembly plants just across the border) (Jacobin, 2015). This paper will focus on explaining how drugs are related to violence in Mexico, how drug enforcement policies influence the relationship between drugs and violence, and how battle for control in their own country.
The United States has had a long-standing policy of intervening in the affairs of other nations when the country has thought it within its best interests to do so. Since the 1970’s the United States has tried to impose its will on other nations to combat the most pressing political enemy of the day often linking the war on drugs to the matter to stoke support both domestically and abroad. In the times of the Cold War, this enemy was communism and the government tried to make the connection of the “Red Dope Menace” insinuating drug links with China, Castro’s Cuba, and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. However, as the world has evolved and communism’s prominence has waned, there is a new enemy whose existence has become intertwined with the drug war. That enemy is terrorism. The connection has gone so far that politicians and journalists have coined a new term to describe the link calling this new problem of our time “Narco-terror.” This paper will examine US efforts to control the drug trade and fight terrorism in Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan and the desired and often undesired consequences that have come about because of those efforts.
Politics in Mexico throughout the course of history has been hostile, to say the least. Like many previously authoritarian regimes, Mexico’s transition into democracy was hard fought. Still today, Mexico’s political system is characterized by political corruption as seen through the influence of the drug cartels and their corporatism and electoral fraud. It is these characteristics that make Mexico a valuable study for comparative politics. While studying Mexico one sees a country that has grown relatively little (due to the aforementioned characteristics of its political system) and is hardly a democracy.
Relations between the United States and Mexico have become increasingly strained, due in part to American’s contribution to ever-growing cartel violence in Mexico. The United States has been the main contributor to the cartels’ takeover of Mexico, and the current policy approach of limiting the United State’s role has failed. History has exhibited our inability to make peace with Mexico, and without considerable reform to our approach to the “War on Drugs” relations between the countries will not improve.
They each control various cities in Mexico and along the US-Mexican border. For the sake of this report, the Gulf cartel will be discussed. The Gulf cartel is one of the major organized crime organizations in Mexico whose prime interest is drug trafficking, with their main operations in Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Alemán, Reynosa, and Matamoros (Brophy, 2008). Although the Gulf cartel is powerful enough with their large numbers of followers, places of operation, and weapons, they also work together with another group called the Zetas. The Zetas can be classified as mafia style group that specializes in one type of commodity, and in this case, the commodity is protection (Brophy, 2008). They defend the Gulf cartel and their territory, as well as act as their hitmen and assassins, and engage in kidnapping, trafficking arms, money-laundering, drug dealing, and collecting payments (Brophy, 2008). With both of these powerful groups controlling many parts of Mexico, the drug trafficking community is intense, violent, and the cities often suffer dire consequences when in conflict with the groups. The illegality of the drug trade has largely to do with the extreme amount of violence when it comes to feuding drug cartels and law enforcement (Brophy, 2008). The Gulf cartel and the Zetas are not only powerful due to their weapons and violence, but they have a great mount of influence as well, especially though politics, and this will be discussed further in the report. With the Gulf cartel being but one of many threats in Mexico, the country is also affected in many others ways not only by the cartels, but by the United States as
Mexico has an extended past of cartel deaths, drugs and weapon trafficking is in all time high growing year by year. Mexico's gangs have succeeded since the late 19th century, mostly in the northern part due to their vicinity to towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. But it was the American desire for cocaine in the 1970s that gave Mexican drug cartels enormous power to the production and transport illegal drugs across the border. Initial Mexican gangs were mainly situated in border towns where prostitution, drug abuse, breach of copyright and extortion succeeded. The United States devotes almost $500 million a year on backing Mexico’s war against cartels that shifts drugs to American consumers. Last year the Armed Forces police explain that 70 percent of the illegal guns impounded from Mexican Drug cartels in the five years previous had been U.S. made.
Drug trafficking has been a massive concern between the borders of Mexico and the U.S. “since mid 1970s” (Wyler, 1). Drug trafficking is “knowingly being in possession, manufacturing, selling, purchasing, or delivering an illegal, controlled substance” (LaMance, 1). A dynamic relationship exists amongst Columbia, Mexico, and the U.S. the informal drug trafficking economy. This growing informal drug economy leads to many individuals creating a substantial living through this undercover market. These individual drug cartels monopolizing the trafficking market are a growing problem for the U.S economy and need to be located and controlled. If this trafficking continues, the U.S. informal economy will crush the growth of legal industries. The trafficking and abuse of drugs in the U.S. affects nearly all aspects of consumer life. Drug trafficking remains a growing issue and concern to the U.S. government. The U.S. border control must find a way to work with Mexico to overpower the individuals who contribute to the drug trafficking business. This market must be seized and these individuals must be stopped.
A former director of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency’s Mexican office once stated:” The heroin market abhors a vacuum.” The truth in this statement can be extended to not only the heroin trade but also the trade of numerous other drugs of abuse; from cocaine to methamphetamines, the illicit drug trade has had a way of fluidity that allows insert itself into any societal weakness. Much like any traditional commodity good, illicit drugs have become not only an economy in and of themselves, they have transformed into an integral part of the legitimate global economy. Whether or not military or law enforcement action is the most prudent or expedient method of minimizing the ill-effects of the illicit drug trade is of little consequence to the understanding of the economic reality of its use in the United States ongoing “War on Drugs”. As it stands, not only has the illicit drug trade transformed itself into a self-sufficient global economy, so too has the drug-fighting trade. According to a CNN report in 2012, in the 40 years since the declaration of “The War on Drugs”, the United States Federal Government has spent approximately $1 trillion in the fight against illicit drugs. Additionally, a report in the New York Times in 1999 estimates that federal spending in the “War on Drugs” tops $19 billion a year and state and local government spending nears $16 billion a year. Given the sheer magnitude of federal, state, and local spending in the combat of the illicit drug trade, one would reasonably expect that the violence, death, and destruction that so often accompanies the epicenters of the drug economy would be expelled from the close proximity of the United States. While this expectation is completely reasonable to the ...
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
Mexico has been fighting drug cartels and their violence since December of 2006, since then, the activity between these organizations and crimes have been on the rise. In Mexico, over 70,000 people have lost their lives in crimes and violence associated with the leading cartels of Mexico. These leading cartels include: The Beltran Leyva, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and the Tijuana/Arellano Felix Cartel. One of the most important effects of these cartels is in the social life of the citizens. Most of the citizens are terrified of these cartels, to the point where streets seem vacant because the people are too scared to roam the streets. These cartels impose fear with acts such as that of September 15, 2008, when grenades were thrown into crowds in Morelia town square in an independence day celebration killing eight people. The soci...
The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on terrorism.
The drug problem in the U.S. and around the world is an important issue and seems to be a difficult problem to tackle across the board. The inflow of drugs has become one of the largest growths in transnational crime operations; illicit drug use in the United States makes it very difficult for nation states police and customs forces to get a handle on the issues. War on drugs, drug trafficking has long been an issue for the United States. There has been a proclamation of “war on drugs” for the past 44 years.
Over the last decade, Southwest border violence has elevated into a national security concern. Much of the violence appears to stem from the competing growth and distribution networks that many powerful Mexican drug cartels exercise today. The unfortunate byproduct of this criminality reaches many citizens of the Mexican border communities in the form of indiscriminate street gang shootings, stabbings, and hangings which equated to approximately 6,500 deaths in 2009 alone (AllGov, 2012). That same danger which now extends across the border regions of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California has the potential for alarming escalation. Yet, despite the violence, evermore-brazen behavior continues to grow, as does America’s appetite for drugs. Even though drug-related violence mandates that law enforcement agencies focus on supply reduction, the Office of National Drug Control Policy should shift its present policy formulation efforts to only drug demand reduction because treatment and prevention efforts are inadequate and strategy has evolved little over the last three decades.
First of all, legalization marijuana has enormous tax revenue. This will save us taxpayers millions also if marijuana is decriminalized by reducing the amount of money we pay to maintain prisoners incarcerated for marijuana related afflictions. Research Miron reports “that marijuana legalization would reduce government expenditures by roughly $8 billion annually. Approximately $5.5 billion of this would come from decreased state and local expenditures and approximately $2.5 billion from decreased federal expenditures. At the state and local levels, the reduced expenditures would consist of $1.8 billion less spent on police, $3.2 less on prosecutions, and $0.5 billion less on incarceration.” (At the federal level, a detailed breakdown is not readily available.”) (Miron, 2006).
International Business, Times. "Will US Marijuana Legalisation Help Smash the Mexican Drug Cartels?."International Business Times 08 Nov. 2012: Points of View Reference Center. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.