The Impact of NAFTA on Drug Smuggling
The Impact of NAFTA on Drug Smuggling
Interviewed on " Meet the Press" (2/23/97) Perot put "that little snake squarely on the table" again (Appendix). This time he referenced the source of the charge as DEA. officials. In a subsequent article on the merits of drug certification for Mexico, one former senior DEA official was quoted as saying that the Administration had given economic, trade, and political considerations precedence over drug enforcement. The history of Mexican-US relations in this area since NAFTA shows strong support for Perot's claim.
In the 1980s the Mexican gangs functioned basically as smugglers of the cocaine of the Columbian cartels and domestically grown marijuana. With the successful interdiction of the Miami area smuggling, the land route through Mexico became the major channel for cocaine going to the U.S. The Mexican gangs then asked for partial payment in drugs and began developing their own distribution networks in the U.S. By 1995 the Mexican cartels became the dominant element of the cocaine networks as well as developing a major trade in methamphetamines ("Speed") which has supplanted cocaine in many areas as the drug of choice. DEA testimony before Congress in 1995 revealed that the Mexican gangs had developed their own distribution networks throughout the mid-Atlantic area (later including New York). The volume of Speed they had supplied to the U.S. market had also caused the retail California price to fall by 50% to around $2,500 per pound (1). It is now conceded that over 70% of the cocaine entering the U.S. comes through the Mexican border. Estimates of the value of the illegal drugs entering annually through Mexico vary from a high of around $120 Billion down to the DEA publicized number of $ 30 Billion. What ever the fact, the value of illegal drugs exported to the US from Mexico dwarfs that of their major legal U.S. export (oil at $4 billion per year).
With the advent of NAFTA, the drug gangs expanded into many legitimate businesses which could be used for smuggling. U.S. officials have reported on their purchase of airlines, trucking companies, new and used car dealerships, petroleum transport corporations and others. However, the increasing use of intermediaries as owners have made it almost impossible to trace their activities in detail. Operations of this size could not be carried out without at least the passive cooperation of key government agencies. In fact,corruption of the Mexican authorities by the drug cartels is notorious. A former Baja California Mayor showed how hopeless enforcement is by stating that he could pay police $ 300 per month while the drug cartels were offering $1,000 per week (2). The widespread corruption in the Mexican system has provided some spectacles which seem more like fantasy:
The former Attorney General, to whom all drug enforcement reported, is detained in the U.S. after fleeing while his $7 million laundered U.S. bank account is seized.
Federal and City Police fight a pitched gun battle in Juarez that was a dispute between rival protection groups for the drug cartels. (2)
The brother of the President (Raul Salinas) is arrested and the Swiss are proceeding toward confiscating his $ 84 million account on drug charges.
The fact is that seizures of drugs at the Border stations plunged dramatically after NAFTA. "Not a single pound of cocaine was confiscated from more than 2 million trucks that passed through three of the busiest entry points along the the Southwest border where federal officials say the most of the drug enters the country". (4) In the period from 2/93 to 2/95 the retail prices of cocaine and heroin in the U.S. fell by 20% and 37% respectively.
The border interdiction effort depends almost entirely on intelligence inputs to target those vehicles which need to be inspected. Customs analysts have pointed out that something is wrong with their methods given the number of examinations without success. Certainly corruption of the Border patrol has some role in this failure. However,the inspectors did intercept large amounts of the drugs prior to NAFTA when the same corrupting influences were there. The key change was that since NAFTA the U.S. agreed that Mexico would take sole control of drug interdiction operations within their country while the U.S would concentrate on operations in other countries such as Columbia and Peru. Given the corruption of the Mexican law enforcement agencies, much of the reduced effectiveness of border efforts can be attributed to this decision. This seems to have represented a conscious decision by the Clinton Administration, which was entirely aware of the situation in Mexico, to sacrifice drug enforcement in order to cement their political alliance with the Salinas regime.
The political ties between the U.S. Trade Lobby and the Clinton Administration with the Salinas regime and the PRI oligarchy in Mexico was forged in spite of the knowledge of the association of the Mexican politicians with the drug lords. Nevertheless, the U.S. promoted Carlos Salinas as their candidate for the President of the World Trade Organization and lauded his acheivements in Mexico. It has been admitted that the DEA and U.S. intelligence has been aware of the drug connections of Raul Salinas and key Federal witnesses in the September 1996 trial of drug lord Garcia Abrego gave testimony to this effect. However, this was not used in the trial nor made public at the time. The Administration spokesmen have tried to imply that this was only a recent discovery by the DEA. This is flatly contradicted by a current article in the Mexican press which states: (5) " According to former members of the Drug Enforcement Agency officials became aware of Salinas' illicit activities in 1987. nevertheless, no flags were raised at U.S. banks when Salinas made his million-dollar deposits and transfers."
With these and other facts it seems impossible to escape the conclusion that Perot's accusation is right on target.
The newly appointed drug czar (General Guttierez) is arrested as a paid agent of the Mexican drug cartels.
NAFTA brought key changes in the drug enforcement program which made smuggling easier. The first was the increase in the volume of Mexican trucks entering the U.S. These represented a sudden increase of nealry 50% over 1993 levels. In one recent year over 86 million crossed the border while only a few percent were checked at all. The Border inspectors were given a priority of "faciltating" the traffic flows and preventing the back up of hour long traffic lines which had resulted in strong political complaints. At a typical major border crossing the requirement was to pass 75 trucks per hour with only 3 inspectors. The smugglers often use automobiles.One tactic was to send a dozen cars through a busy checkpoint with 100 kilogram loads. In the rare instances that these cars were stopped many still escaped. In 1995, 795 drivers simply sped away into U.S. territory when inspectors raised pointed questions or asked them to pull over.Only a few were caught. (3)
REFERENCES
(1) "DEA Chief Sees Drug Peril " , Washington Aug. 8, 1995 AP
(2) "The Drug Fiefdom of Northern Mexico", Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson, Washington Post April 28,1996.
(3) "Border Too wide, porous for agents to stop drugs" , Miami herald , by Peter Slavin , McAllen Texas.
(4) "Drug Seizures Plunge", by H.G. Reza . L.A. Times staff writer, San Diego 2/13/95
(5) ""Raul Salinas' Teflon Defense", by Georgina Gatslopoulos, El Financero International edition, April 14-20 , 1997.
APPENDIX-- MEET THE PRESS TRANSCRIPT, 2/23/1997
MR. BRODER: Mr. Perot, you've had a long interest in our neighboring nation of Mexico. The president has to decide in the next couple weeks whether to certify Mexico as a nation that is cooperating in our efforts to limit the drug trade. If you were sitting in the White House, what would you do on that question?
MR. PEROT: Well, the last figures I saw is $120 billion a year of illegal drugs coming out of Mexico into our country. That's chemical warfare against our children. I wouldn't tolerate it. I would make it very clear that if they want to trade with us, they've got to clean it up. The responsibility is theirs, and the excuse that it's buried in all those big trucks coming across the border doesn't wash. We know how serious that problem is. You just saw the general that was put in jail and we just briefed him and gave him all our secrets before he was put in jail, so probably a few people will be killed as a result of that. This whole thing is being handled in a softball way and I've had a number of people in the DEA tell me they've been kind of told to hold back because Mexico needs the money. I would not be a part of that, the American people hate that.
MR. BRODER: Told to hold back...
MR. PEROT: Let's grow up and face our problem.
MR. BRODER: What do you mean they have been told to hold back? What does that mean?
MR. PEROT: Well, you know, Mexico needs the money because their economy is in such a mess. Now, can you imagine poisoning our children so that they can clean up the Mexican economy? I can't. And that's unacceptable.
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Copyright © 1997 | Reform Party of California | Revised: September 16, 1997