On Wednesday, May 31st, AMLO revealed that he will meet once again with Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, the National Security Advisor to US President Joe Biden and considered the main strategist at the White House against fentanyl.
When asked directly if this meeting was scheduled, the Mexican President responded, “Yes, the meeting is scheduled at six o’clock in the evening,” without providing further details.
On May 8th, López Obrador received Sherwood-Randall and a delegation from the United States Government at the National Palace to discuss issues related to drug trafficking, arms, migrants, and cooperation for development.
This will be the third time Sherwood-Randall visits Mexico in less than three months. On March 9th, she came to the country to discuss the joint strategy against fentanyl, a synthetic drug that the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) claims is manufactured in Mexico using chemicals from China.
The controversy surrounding the trafficking of this substance has grown in recent months between Mexico and the United States. China joined the debate last weekend, denying that the chemical precursors for fentanyl come from their country and expressing support for Mexico in defense of its “sovereignty and dignity.”
The controversy has even led the United States Republican Party to propose declaring war on Mexican cartels and designating them as “terrorist organizations.”
The meeting also comes a few weeks after the US government ended Title 42, a measure adopted by Donald Trump (2017-2021) and continued by President Biden to expel migrants citing the Covid-19 pandemic. It was replaced with Title 8, which historically governs migration in the United States and includes deportations and less flexible measures for detaining the flow of migrants.
Source: OEM
