SANTA MONICA, Calif. – President Lopez Obrador of Mexico met with Homeland Security Advisor to the White House, Liz Sherwood-Randall, today in Mexico City to discuss the fentanyl crisis.
“Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl,” Lopez Obrador said during the meeting. The president went on to question, “Why don’t they (the U.S.) take care of their problem of social decay?”
It is really not a surprising comment when one considers the current quality of politicians throughout the world. Many ignore factual information and bend the truth to fit into their created narrative.
Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin. And now, it seems like Lopez Obrador has joined the club. Are they the best we can do?
Here are some facts about fentanyl and the Mexican connection. In February of this year, the Mexican army seized approximately a half a million fentanyl pills, reports:
In July of 2022, the Mexican army and National Guard announced the seizure of over half a ton of fentanyl at a warehouse in the northern city of Culiacan. At the time, Ricardo Mejia, Assistant Public Safety Secretary under Lopez Obrador said, “This is the largest seizure in (the) history of the lethal drug.” Culiacan is the capital of the Sinaloa state. The Mexican Department of Defense said they arrested 10 men during the raid who were possibly tied to the Sinaloa Cartel.
According to the Brookings Institute, the production of fentanyl is a global crisis. Brookings’ research show that Chinese cartels, like the Zheng cartel, provide the precursor materials for fentanyl to cartels in Mexico. The Chinese cartels provide the material primarily to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion.
These are all facts that Lopez Obrador knows.
The president is lying,” said Mexican security analyst David Saucedo. “The Mexican cartels, above all the CJNG ( Jalisco New Generation Cartel) and the Sinaloa Cartel have learned to manufacture it,” he said when speaking about fentanyl.
“They themselves buy the precursor chemicals, set up laboratories to produce fentanyl and distribute it to cities in the United States and sell it,” Saucedo said. “Little by little they have begun to build a monopoly on fentanyl, because the Mexican cartels are present along the whole chain of production and sales.”
Some informational and referential content courtesy of the Brookings Institute, CBS News, ABC News, Fox News, The U.S – China Economic and Security Review Commission, YouTube, SkyNews, and the Los Angeles Times.