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Mexico's president-elect rules out armed US anti-drug agents south of the border
Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto in an interview with The Washington Post ruled out allowing armed U.S. agents to operate in Mexico like they do in other Latin American countries, but vowed close cooperation in the war on drugs.
The comments are meant to reassure the United States that Mexico is still committed to battling the cartels despite all three candidates' electoral promise to tamp down the violence, which has left 50,000 people dead over the past three years. In the interview, the president-elect — he will take office in December — said he could agree to hosting U.S. military instructors and allow U.S. drones, but drew the line at allowing armed drug enforcement officials into the country.
“It is just as if I asked you: Should our police operate on the other side of the border?” he told the Post. “No. That would not be allowed by U.S. law. Our situation is the same.”
Peña Nieto however has vowed to have a “close relationship” with the United States and has made the former chief of the Colombian National Police, who is close to the United States, his national security adviser. The decision has impressed some lawmakers, including border-district Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who was with Peña Nieto when the election results came in last weekend and said he's convinced the president-elect won't cut the cartels any slack.
“That was actually my first question,” Cuellar told The Hill. “Now that I've got to know him, I feel like he's not going to do that.”
Peña Nieto also told the Post that he didn't fault America's Second Amendment for the gun violence in his country, although he did say he was in favor of “better gun-trafficking enforcement.”
