US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today highlighted Mexico’s counternarcotics effort and cooperation with the United States in the fight against fentanyl, but said parts of Mexico are controlled by drug cartels and the United States must do more to stop the spread. fentanyl intake.
At a hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Blinken was questioned by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who pressed his question about whether there are parts of Mexico where the government has no control over the cartels. Blinken said: “it would be fair to say yes.”
Graham asked if the Biden administration would be willing to designate the Mexican cartels “foreign terrorist organizations.” His response was that it could be considered, although he expressed doubts about how the move could help in the fight against drug traffickers.
The senator also asked him if he agreed to admit that fentanyl from Mexico was killing tens of thousands of Americans. Blinken replied that he was, but that he was also killing Mexicans and that the victims were on both sides of the border.
He said that the US side has to do more to stop the flow of that drug, indicating that 96% were entering through legal border ports.
Graham declared that the current strategy of both governments is not working and that “they” [los mexicanos] they are shipping more fentanyl which is killing more americans each year than the total who died in the entire vietnam war. This “poisoning of America” cannot be tolerated, he concluded.
