MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS

Mexican Drug Cartels

Abstract

In this research we try to discover the insight of “Mexican Drug Cartels” in a holistic perspective. The key heart of the study is on “Mexican Drug Cartels” and its relation with “United States Border Security”. The research also examines various characteristics of “Mexican Drug Cartels” and tries to measure its effect. Lastly the research illustrates a variety of factors which are responsible for “Mexican Drug Cartels” and tries to describe the overall effect of it.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Discussion and Analysis4

Drug Violence on the Rise in Mexico6

U.S. Addresses Mexican Drug Violence9

U.S., Mexico Share Common Goal11

Conclusion12

Mexican Drug Cartels

Introduction

The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the world's busiest, with hundreds of thousands of legal crossings every day. Alongside the legitimate traffic of people and goods, however, is an illegal trade estimated by the U.S. government to be worth tens of billions of dollars a year. Drug traffickers smuggle their products from Mexico into the U.S., while money earned from those sales flows in the opposite direction. The trafficking is controlled by powerful Mexican drug cartels. In recent years, those cartels have been fighting both each other and the Mexican authorities, who under President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa have launched a major crackdown on the drug trade.

Many observers have characterized the level of violence in Mexico over the past few years as an outright war. Northern cities along the U.S. border have been particularly hard hit, as drug cartels battle for control of the points of entry to the U.S. drug market. Kidnappings, brutal murders and assassinations of government officials, soldiers and police have become common. The drug cartels have developed their own paramilitary units, and are often as well-armed as the government forces they are fighting.

Discussion and Analysis

The U.S. has sought to assist Mexico in combating drug traffickers through a security-related aid package known as the Mérida Initiative. That aid is being doled out by Congress gradually, however, and the Mexican government has expressed concern that it is not arriving fast enough for Mexico to maintain the upper hand against the cartels. It has also complained of lax gun laws that allow drug traffickers to buy guns easily in the U.S. and smuggle them across the border into Mexico. In addition, the Mexican government has charged that the U.S. should do more to address the role that Americans' demand for drugs has played in the current surge of violence (Zabludoff, 1998).

It was to address such concerns that President Obama (D) visited Mexico in April 2009 to meet with Calderón. He pledged to expedite $700 million in aid, much of it military- and security-related, under the Mérida Initiative. In addition, Obama committed the U.S. to ratifying an international treaty that would improve the tracking of guns across international borders.

Critics of the plan say that Obama should have committed to reinstating the U.S. ban on guns with military-style features, known as assault weapons, arguing that such weapons often make their way into the hands of drug ...