Fentanyl: The key to war and peace between the United States and Mexico
The deadly opiate embodies the fight against organized crime; it has unleashed bilateral accusations, and keeps setting the agenda day after day
In just a few years, fentanyl has gone from being just a public health problem to becoming a word that conditions the thorny relations between the United States and Mexico. Because saying “fentanyl” is saying drug trafficking, violence and deaths. In the name of the opiate, Ismael El Mayo Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was captured in July after an unclear kidnapping operation that ended with his arrest in U.S. territory. Even then, there was talk of it being an electoral operation: the Republicans were clamoring against the Mexican cartels ― that is, against the fentanyl that kills around 100,000 people in the United States every year ― and the Democrats could not be oblivious to that logic. Months later, and with Donald Trump almost seated in the Oval Office, fentanyl continues to poison the debate between both nations.
