The foreign policies of the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG – Part I: In the Americas
BrookingsJul 27, 2022
According to the Mexican government, the US has requested that Mexico extradite Ovidio Guzman — the son of jailed drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as "El Chapo." Ovidio was arrested in January for allegedly helping run his father's infamous Sinaloa drug cartel.
Ovidio was initially arrested in 2019 before security forces freed him after his cartel waged a war in response. He's accused by the US of helping oversee around a dozen methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa and conspiring to distribute cocaine and marijuana.
There is a clear difference between the United State's relationship with Mexican cartels and that of the Mexican government. While Sinaloa is still the main distributor of illicit drugs in the US, cartel members know that they can't wage violent wars on the US military and police as they do south of the border. When the US government wants a drug lord, it will find him, arrest him, and put him behind bars for a long time.
The US media has an incredibly inaccurate and racialized perspective of the so-called "drug war" in Mexico. Drug trafficking and violence in Mexico have much more to do with how criminal networks work in conjunction with the Mexican state than what amounts to occasional military operations against said networks. Even as the US and Mexican governments' response has expanded and militarized over the years, drug smuggling and use in the US have only increased.