Sparks Will Fly at Washington Meeting

The meeting is raising expectations as national officials have not even been able to sit down at the same table in their own country.

On Thursday, a high-level meeting on security between Mexican and U.S. authorities will take place in Washington. Among those attending will be Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Rosa Icela Rodriguez, and Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero.

A joint conference will take place at the end of the meeting to announce results, this occurring in the midst of controversy over the surveillance of U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar’s activities by the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense, according to information from GuacamayaLeaks.

The meeting is raising expectations as national officials have not even been able to sit round the same table in their own country. Yet, they come to the U.S. when there is a red alert for corruption and failure in Mexico’s justice system, a situation that has led to impunity and flawed trials and potentially allows criminal activity to go unchecked.

So warns a report by the Congressional Research Service, delivered to the White House as “Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations,” and which identifies more than nine active organizations operating in Mexico and the U.S.: Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, Noroeste, Beltrán Leyva, Knights Templar, Los Viagras, Familia Michoacana, Los Rojos, the Tijuana-Arellano Félix and Juárez Carrillo Fuentes Organization.

The conference will address four subjects. Most importantly, it will examine the trafficking of fentanyl (which has turned U.S. addicts into zombies). The meeting will also deal with a plan of action for human trafficking and smuggling, securing border trade, and arms trafficking. The last item represents a call to condemn the U.S. for complaining about organized crime and insecurity in our country. However, Mexican authorities will arrive with the knowledge that an arms supplier for a criminal group had its base of operations in Military Camp# 1, and another near the eighth camp in Almoloya. The military was aware of this, but it is not yet known whether the investigations have concluded.

All this means that the meeting between Mexican officials and the U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be comfortable for either side, and sparks are bound to fly.