The Trump administration’s global charm offensive continues apace.
On Wednesday, President Trump posted footage on his Truth Social platform of B2 stealth fighter jets dropping bombs to the soundtrack of “Bomb Iran,” a parody of the Beach Boys’ 1960’s song “Barbara Ann”, just days after imposing a fragile — or in the words of the former British diplomat Craig Murray, “phantom” — ceasefire on Iran and Israel. Trump also threatened to impose tariffs on Spain after the Pedro Sánchez government had the temerity to question the wisdom of tripling Spain’s defence spending over the next ten years before falling into line.
On the same day, Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, seemed to suggest that the US has updated its list of “foreign adversaries” by throwing Mexico, the US’ largest trade partner, into the mix alongside more established names like Iran, Russia and China. The revelation came during a Senate Expenditures Committee hearing in which Bondi praised to the rafters Trump’s leadership in the face of international crises, such as the conflict in the Middle East, as well as his role in protecting US citizens from external threats, including the drug overdose epidemic.
“We will not be intimidated and we will keep America safe because of President Trump’s leadership. Not only against Iran, but also against Russia, China and Mexico,” Bondi said in response to questions by the chicken-hawk neo-con Senator Lyndsey Graham. “In the face of any foreign adversary, whether it tries to kill us physically or by overdosing our children with drugs, we will do everything in our power, thanks to his leadership, to keep America safe.”
Graham asked whether Mexico was helping the US with its drug problem, to which Bondi responded:
Senator, that conversation might be better to have in a classified setting.
However, Bondi did say that the “Sinaloa Cartel has wreaked havoc in our country, and continues to wreak havoc. And fentanyl keeps coming in.” What she didn’t mention is that deaths caused by fentanyl have fallen by 26% from a 2023 peak, according to estimates by the CDC.
Graham, meanwhile, was happy to fill in the gaps, alleging that half of Mexico is run by the cartels:
We’re never going to be safe here until we get Mexico to change its strategy… Enough, enough with Mexico. Enough of that crap. We are going to go after them with or without help from Mexico because I do not know what the right response is against a neighbour who allows this type of illegal thing to enter our country and kill more young people than any other.
A Convenient Scapegoat
Lyndsey Graham has been trying to pin all the blame for the US’ opioid crisis on Mexico for some time now while trying to obfuscate the much darker truth: as Peter Isackson pointed out in 2019, “the very real opioid crisis did not originate south of the border, but is a totally domestic problem whose source has now been clearly identified. The culprit: OxyContin, a multibillion dollar opioid manufactured and marketed in the United States by the very American firm, Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family.”
Granted, in recent years the US’s opioid crisis has morphed into a fentanyl crisis, much of which appears to be entering the US via Mexico. However, as Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly noted, the US tends to view its narcotics problem exclusively through a supply-side lens. That way, all of the blame for the US’ opioid crisis can be shifted overseas, diverting attention away from the role played by US pharmaceutical companies such as the Sacklers’ Purdue Pharma in starting and fuelling the opioid epidemic.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to ramp up the pressure on Mexico. A couple of weeks ago, Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security accused Sheinbaum of encouraging the violent protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles. Donald Trump’s son, Eric, also made incendiary remarks on Fox News while drawing a comparison between Iran’s recent attacks on Israel and a hypothetical attack by Mexico on the US: “if Mexico were to fire rockets into the US, I think they would be decapitated in about four seconds.”
The US is also escalating its financial war against the Mexican cartels, some of which Trump recently designated as terrorist organisations. This week, the Treasury Department accused three Mexican financial institutions of participating in money laundering on behalf of drug cartels involved in fentanyl trafficking between Mexico and the US. They included the brokerage firm Vector Casa de Bolsa, which is owned by the Mexican businessman Alfonso Romo, who served as former President Andrés López Manual Obrador’s interface with national and international business interests during AMLO’s first two years in power.
Whether this will prove to be the long-sought smoking gun that ties AMLO to the drug cartels, allowing government agencies in Washington to build a legal case against the former president, remains to be seen. It is also unclear what punishment the US will end up meting out against these three financial institutions, and what kind of reverberations they could trigger for Mexico’s broader economy.
This is all part of an intensifying war of words — and actions — the US is waging against its southern neighbour and largest ever trade partner, using the excuse of the Global War on Drugs to justify ever increasing encroachments on Mexico’s already limited sovereignty.
Recent months have seen US spy planes increasing their surveillance at the Mexican border, the US’ renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, the appointment of a former Green Beret and CIA agent as US ambassador to Mexico, the imposition of a tax on all remittance payments issued from the US and now the threat to designate Mexico as a US “adversary.” As far as I’m aware, for Mexico to be officially considered a foreign adversary, an executive order must be issued by the White House.
In one of his first acts as US ambassador to Mexico, Ron Johnson tweeted out the following veiled warning about China’s threat to critical infrastructure and food security:
The Chinese embassy in Mexico responded with the following message:
“Being an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but being a friend is fatal.” A true friend doesn’t forcibly plunder your land, discriminate against migrants, or arbitrarily impose tariffs on you. Equity, respect, cooperation, and shared benefits constitute the proper way for countries to treat each other. Our Mexican friends are fully aware of the “two-faced” tricks of feigning cooperation while stabbing in the back.
Russian Offers of Help
At the same time, Moscow is pushing for closer relations with Mexico. Speaking at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) last weekend, Russia’s Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev announced that Russia is ready to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Mexico as well as share some of its technologies and know how. The offer of help comes at a time when Mexico is importing a staggering 70% of the natural gas it uses from from the United States, most of which arrives in pipelines and is used for electricity generation and industry.
The risks of such dependence became glaringly evident during the Texas winter storm in 2021, when power outages caused millions in losses in Mexico, as a result of which the Mexican government has sought to expand its strategic gas storage capacity. The New York Times even described Mexico’s outsized — and growing — reliance on US natural gas as its Achille’s heel in its relations with the Trump administration.* Now, it seems that Russia is keen to lend Mexico a helping hand…
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Nick Corbishley 