Newly-elected Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador surrendered to the narcotrafficantes — the drug cartels — in 2019 by announcing no more war on them. Instead his government adopted a new “hugs not bullets” policy. Fewer people will die in violent Mexico, he claimed.
“Hugs not bullets” makes AMLO the ex-officio top dog of the Mexican multi-billion-dollar narcotics universe that touches hundreds of thousands of families as a way of life or death.
Is AMLO correct in theorizing that “hugs not bullets” means fewer people dying by violence? No. Here are seven reasons why.
First, the murder rate skyrocketed.
Second, the cartels grew. One study suggests that more than 175,000 Mexicans work for the various drug cartel enterprises from the Guatemalan border to the United States. That workforce number would rank fifth in Mexican business and industry if it were actually counted.
Third, AMLO ordered law enforcement to release a nationally prominent cartel leader, an alleged son of former drug lord “El Chapo.” AMLO excused his release of this criminal because his followers supposedly “warned the government that unless the young man was released immediately, they would attack and slaughter large numbers of “civilians” in the narcotrafficante state of Sinaloa’s capital, Culiacan.
Fourth, AMLO made a public spectacle of himself by publicly greeting the mother of the infamous El Chapo — the name means “Shorty ” — in front of the media. He did so as the former drug lord was destined to serve a lifetime prison sentence in the “Supermax” federal prison in Colorado.
Fifth, enterprising Mexican cartel leaders discovered that under AMLO they could make far more money by organizing fentanyl production laboratories. They sprouted like weeds anywhere they could truck the Chinese-produced chemical ingredients from Mexican Pacific ports to nascent labs.
Sixth, 200 Americans are now dying daily from fentanyl use. After production of millions of pills containing fentanyl came distribution systems that easily moved the new merchandise to the U.S. So far fentanyl has killed more Americans than died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Seventh, cocaine production in Mexico has skyrocketed since AMLO became president. Coca leaf production is replacing traditional coffee bean agriculture. In the past two years, it has grown by a whopping 1,271% in just two states — Guerrero and Michoacan.
AMLO had allowed all of this to happen while he called off the army and never allowed his new National Guard to challenge the narcotraficantes.
He keeps the army busy building an airport no one wanted, and the Navy and Marines collecting taxes and import duties at Mexican ports, while the criminal class is rapidly expanding fentanyl and cocaine smuggling.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will leave office 11 months from now. His legacy will be tens of thousands of drug deaths, obscenely wealthy smugglers and former coffee farmers, and more cocaine-addicted Americans.
Muchas gracias, Sr. Presidente.
Raoul Lowery Contreras is a Marine Corps veteran, political consultant, prolific author and host of the Contreras Report on YouTube and Facebook.