Mexico’s president says he won’t fight drug cartels on US orders, calls it a ‘Mexico First’ policy

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“Of course we are going to cooperate in fighting drugs, above all because it has become a very sensitive, very sad humanitarian issue, because a lot of young people are dying in the United States because of fentanyl,” the president said.

Asked about those comments at the time, residents of one town in the western Mexico state of Michoacan who have lived under drug cartel control for years reacted with disgust and disbelief.

López Obrador has also made a point of visiting the township of Badiraguato in Sinaloa state, the home of drug lords like Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, at least a half dozen times, and pledging to do so again before he leaves office in September.

But it did note the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Friday on a Sinaloa Cartel money-laundering network in which the proceeds of fentanyl sales were used to buy shipments of cell phones in the United States, which were then sold in Mexico.

John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, credited “strong partnership with the government of Mexico, with which we coordinated closely and for which, we are grateful,” in investigating that case.

The cartels control increasingly large swathes of territory both in northern Mexico — their traditional base — and in southern states like Guerrero, Michoacan, Chiapas and Veracruz.

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