Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign.
B (0:07)
Welcome back, everybody, to what really Matters. I'm Jeremy Stern with you in Los Angeles. I'm here, as always with Walter Russell Mead of tablet, the Wall Street Journal, Hudson Institute, and the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. Let's start with this week's news. First story of the week. The Mexican government said it killed the nation's most wanted cartel boss on Sunday, setting off a wave of retaliatory fires and violence across the country. Nemesio Aceguarra Cervantes, known as El Mencho, was the longtime leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel and widely regarded as one of Mexico's most violent criminal figures. He presided over a rapidly expanding enterprise involved in drug production, extortion, and terrorizing communities nationwide. His killing plunged Mexico into a highly tense moment. Past captures of cartel leaders have set off wars between government forces and rival factions jockeying for control. Armed groups blocked roads and set fire to supermarkets, banks and vehicles in one of the most widespread eruptions of turmoil in the nation's recent history. The killing is a major victory in Mexico's new offensive against drug cartels and could help reduce pressure from President Trump, who has been threatening strikes in Mexico. The Mexican government said the United States contributed intelligence that aided the operation, though U.S. officials stress no American troops were involved. Walter, is this episode news or fo news?
A (1:29)
It's news. It's news. I mean, the underlying situation is not news. It's been around. But this does point to things actually happening. One is that for some time, the Mexican government had been trying to take a less confrontational approach to the cartels. Sort of the idea is, well, if you don't poke the bear with a sharp stick, the bear might not come after you. And the Trump administration has been pushing very hard to get the Mexicans to do more about these cartels. And so this would be a sign, I think, if nothing else, that the government feels that the risks of taking on the cartels are less than the risks of alienating the Trump administration. Which probably tells you when you consider that they would rather see firefights all over parts of Mexico and horrors at Costco on fire. They would rather see that than have a fight with President Trump. Does suggest maybe there's been a lot of diplomatic pressure behind the scenes. I noticed, too, that Mexico is not sending oil to Cuba, which in the past has been a practice. In fact, they used to say in Cuba that every time the president was about to do something kind of unpopular that would be perceived as too right wing. They'd like, make a state visit to Cuba just to kind of like offset it to the left. So this is, you know, it tells us something about the power relationship and the degree to which Trump is, is exploiting it. I understand too, that some of the conversations taking place around tariffs and the renewal of the U.S. mexico, Canada, a trade agreement, there's talk of leaving Canada out and just doing it with Mexico, which again suggests that there's some real horse trading going on behind the scenes here. Beyond that, the scale of violence really was unusual. We don't know whether this is going to continue or if it just kind of settles down in a bit. But we need to remember that many of the states of the governments south of our border do not exert full control over their own territory. This is not in the sense that, you know, sort of, you can say, well, in the United States, there's a lot of urban neighborhoods where there's crime and, you know, is that really a, you know, the government is not really in charge. But this is more, you know, it's not just that there are neighborhoods, but there are financial networks, there are business organizations and so on. There's a range of entities and networks that answer to the cartels rather than to the government. And to some degree, these pose a threat to central authority. I think Americans should look in the mirror here a little bit. You know, those Latin Americans, they can't organize anything. What's wrong? The reason that these societies are, one of the big reasons that these cartels are so strong is, is because Americans like cocaine and have been sniffing our way to these sort of short term spikes of joy or whatever it is. The consequences for our neighbors and then coming back onto us are immense. The entrenched corruption, the violence that underlies everything, you know, I'm sure that none of our listeners, Jeremy, would ever be the kind of people to use illegal drugs. So, you know, I'm just preaching to the choir here. But if you have any friends who take drugs, it is actually a moral issue. It is not just, how does this make me feel? Or does the US Government have the right to tell me what I can and can't do with my own body? It is, do you really think a kind of momentary happiness in your part justifies your participation with terrorists, with utterly unscrupulous criminal narco traffickers? I think in the future people will look back at the sheer selfishness of generations of Americans who, who put their own happiness above any concept of responsibility to their neighbors. So it's news. Things are happening. The crow, the, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost.