MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not manufacture or use fentanyl, despite evidence to the contrary, suggesting that the synthetic opioid epidemic is largely a U.S. problem that should be addressed. in this country.
“Here, we do not produce fentanyl and we do not consume fentanyl. And we are very sorry for what is happening in the United States,” said Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “Why don’t they fight the distribution of fentanyl in the United States? …. Why don’t you take care of your young ones?
The president made these statements during his morning conference just before meeting Liz Sherwood-Randall, national security adviser to the White House, who is traveling to Mexico to discuss the crisis caused by this drug.
The statement also coincides with calls from US Republicans to use the US military to attack drug labs in Mexico.
The Mexican government has acknowledged in the past that fentanyl is produced in labs in Mexico with precursor chemicals imported from China. In fact, among US and even Mexican authorities, there is little dispute that virtually all of the fentanyl consumed in the United States is processed in Mexico.
In February, the Mexican military announced it had seized more than half a million fentanyl tablets in what it called the largest synthetic drug lab discovered to date. The military said the open-air laboratory was discovered in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state.
In the same city, in 2021, the military raided a lab it estimated was manufacturing some 70 million fentanyl tablets per month for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Some 70,000 annual opioid deaths in the United States are attributed to fentanyl, and official Mexican institutions also speak of burgeoning use in Mexican border towns.
López Obrador insisted that part of the blame for the crisis the United States is facing with fentanyl is due to the lack of policies to deal with consumers, single-parent families or the “serious problem of social breakdown”. .
The president’s remarks contrasted with those of the US Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, on Twitter, where he said the meeting between Sherwood-Randall and the Mexican attorney general was aimed at “improving security cooperation and combating against the scourge of #fentanyl to better protect our two nations.
López Obrador pointed out that this issue is used for propaganda purposes by Republican politicians who want to send the armed forces to Mexico to fight the cartels, which he considers an insult to the sovereignty of the country.