Pantomime at the US-Mexico Border

Rio Grande Bend near Boquillas Canyon (Big Bend National Park, TX), photo Glysiak Wikimedia Commons

by Phil Hall

The cartels are not merely Mexican; they are Amexican. For the cartels, the border is imaginary. They operate on both sides of it, with American and Mexican nationals working together in a sophisticated network of wholesale and retail drug distribution. The nationalism surrounding the discussion of the crime syndicates that straddle the two countries is a pantomime. Colonel Douglas McGregor has pointed out that deploying ten thousand soldiers to the border is insufficient, but his Our Country, Our Choice is a racialised organization. The point, for McGregor and others advocating for closing the border is not primarily preventing crime, but preserving the European white Christian basis of settler culture. Plain and simple, those 10,000 U.S. soldiers at the border are performing in a pantomime. Those are 15,000 pantomime Mexican soldiers. Watch out, Colonel, they are behind you!

Clamping down on the Amexican criminal cartels would likely provoke a violent backlash, including more cartel-organised terrorist acts in the U.S. and an escalation of the drug war into a full-blown conflict. This could lead to the assassination of U.S. figures in politics, journalism, and other walks of life, echoing what already happens in Mexico. The problem of drug trafficking (and migration) is far more complex and requires a comprehensive strategy. While military solutions may play a role, they must be part of a broader approach that addresses root causes.

Over the past decade, the cartels have contributed to an estimated 300,000 homicides in Mexico, many tied to drug-related violence. In reality, the figure is likely more than double that. In the U.S., in addition to crime-related deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports over 500,000 opioid overdose deaths since 2013, fueled largely by cartel-supplied fentanyl. Combined, these figures surpass the death tolls of the Iraq War (2003–2011) and the ongoing Ukraine conflict. The transnational Amexican cartels’ reach is not confined to border regions; their networks extend into all 50 U.S. states.

The Cartels and Mexican Politics

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The cartels are so powerful that it is suggested criminal elements control Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, formerly led by the populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). There are strong allegations that Morena has firm ties to cartels, particularly the Sinaloa Cartel. AMLO’s “hugs not bullets” policy—eschewing direct confrontation with cartels—has allowed groups like Sinaloa to consolidate power. Journalists such as Anabel Hernández have documented cases of local Morena officials colluding with cartels to secure electoral victories, illustrating the blurred lines between politics and organised crime.

All this finger-pointing by Trump and the right, scapegoating Mexicans for the drug trade, is pure hypocrisy coming from politicians who represent the country that is the prime retail outlet for drug consumption—the capital of dope, where you can find the head of the cartel hydra: the USA. This is not a “Mexican” problem.

The Kennedy Parallel

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The assassination of President John F. Kennedy serves as a cautionary tale for Donald Trump. The Kennedy family itself had ties to bootlegging and organised crime during Prohibition. Organised crime, in the form of the Kennedys and others, embedded itself deeply into the U.S. political and economic systems. If President Donald Trump were to seriously confront the cartels, he would be taking on an enemy far more powerful and ruthless than he realises: organised crime on both sides of the border—wholesale and retail. Whitney Webb has documented the ties between organised crime, the US intelligence services and financial capital in the USA. The cartels have already demonstrated their willingness to assassinate politicians, journalists, and anyone who stands in their way. Trump’s underestimation of their power could prove fatal to him.

Mexico and the USA: Two Halves of the Same Orange

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The crisis posed by the Amexican cartels is inseparable from the interconnected realities of trade, migration, history, and geopolitics. To understand why only political, social, and economic integration can resolve this threat, we must examine the stakes through data, history, and policy.

Approximately 30 million people of Mexican origin reside in the U.S., many in territories annexed after the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forced Mexico to cede 55% of its territory—modern-day California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico—through a combination of military conquest and coercive diplomacy. This history of displacement underscores the artificiality of treating the U.S.-Mexico border as a rigid divide.

North America’s economic interdependence is staggering. Over $3.7 billion in goods and services crosses the U.S.-Mexico-Canada borders daily. In 2023 Mexico was the USA’s largest trading partner with a total trade of $475 billion. Mexico overtook Canada and China. With the illegal trade in narcotics and people going one way, and armaments going the other, unofficially the volume of trade is even greater. This visible and invisible supply chain web includes everything from automotive parts to avocados, and supports millions of jobs and thousands of companies.

The original Mexicans (who stayed behind when over half of Mexican territory was purloined by the USA in the 19th century) and later Mexican migrants, have significantly shaped the religious, cultural, and economic landscape of the U.S. Mexican music and traditions are alive in U.S. towns and cities. Millions of Mexican-Americans, including many people of mixed heritage, contribute fully and powerfully in all spheres of life and at every level of U.S. society.

New Mexican migrants—the ones that most frequently transit the border—play a critical role in the U.S. economy, particularly in labour-intensive industries. They account for a significant percentage of the workforce in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. For example, over 70% of farmworkers in the U.S. are of Mexican descent, ensuring the stability of the food supply chain. Mexican culture has deeply influenced American cuisine, art, music, architecture, and entertainment. Spanish is the second language of the United States, with Spanish-language TV and radio channels, newspapers, and a large Mexican-American presence on the internet.

Every university history, archaeology, and anthropology department researches Mexico and Central America’s millennial past as if it were the USA’s own past—the past of the Americas. Mexican food is eaten everywhere, and in the southern part of the United States, many people are familiar with a full range of Mexican dishes, not just tacos and burritos. Mexican art and architecture have influenced U.S. art and architecture, and vice versa. Even that most American of cultural traditions, the USA’s boots and hats cowboy culture, has roots in Mexico’s charro traditions. All this is obvious, but the contribution of Mexican Americans and mixed race Americans who have assimilated is enormous and less obviously ‘Mexican’.

The Choice: Fascism or Equal Development

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The U.S. faces two choices in addressing the cartel and migration crisis. The first is a turn toward fascism—a heavy-handed, militarised, and racialised approach that seeks to crush criminality through brute force. The second choice is equal development—a long-term strategy that addresses the root causes of criminal power: poverty, inequality, and lack of opportunity in both the USA and Mexico. This approach requires political, social, and economic integration across North America, recognising that the fates of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are inextricably linked. This goes against the current racialised nationalism of the Trump government.

The only viable solution to this crisis is the political, social, and economic integration of North America. This means moving beyond outdated notions of ethno-nationalism and recognising that the problems of one country are the problems of the other. No king Canute will hold back the process. The U.S. must invest in Mexico’s development as a strategic necessity and establish an open and honest exchange—a far cry from the pantomime of sending troops to the border and pointing the finger at all brown people who may or may not speak Spanish.

Encouragingly, before 9/11, both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush prioritized North American integration. Bush met frequently with Mexican President Vicente Fox to discuss immigration reform and economic partnership. The 2001 terror attacks, however, shifted U.S. focus to global counterterrorism, empowering globalist Neocon factions in the USA over regionalists. In today’s multipolar world—where China and the EU leverage regional blocs—the U.S. must establish its own cooperative regional bloc in the Western Hemisphere.

Conclusion: Integration or Internecine War

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The cartels are a symptom of deeper fractures: unequal development, historical trauma, divisions in U.S. society between rich and poor, and the culture of escapism and hedonism that arose in the USA in the 1960s (oddly enough, even the USA’s drug culture is a borrowing from Mexico—from the peyote traditions of the Mexican Huichol).

Fascist-like crackdowns will fail, as they ignore the cartels’ huge fibrous web of binational roots. Instead, the U.S. must embrace integration—and even join together in a Federation with Mexico and Canada. A Marshall Plan for Mexico, funded by North American capital, could help dismantle the supply cartels by addressing poverty and corruption. The cartels that cater to demand can be dismantled in much the same way—through increased inward investment and raised living standards for ordinary U.S. citizens. Perhaps the new symbol of this future Amexican Federation could be an avocado sapling.

The alternative to integration is internecine war on both sides of the border.

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References:

Historical Analysis of Prohibition and Organized Crime. Journal of American History. 2020.

U.S. Trade Representative. (2023). USMCA Trade Data.

Mexican Government. (2023). Homicide Statistics Report.

CDC. (2023). Opioid Overdose Death Data.

Hernández, A. (2020). Mexico: Corruption and Cartels in the AMLO Era.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). Mexican-American Demographic Data.

DeLay, B. (2008). War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War.

Bush, G.W. (2001). Joint Statement with President Vicente Fox.

McGregor, Douglas. Military Strategy and the Cartel Threat. 2023.

Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage. 1956.

U.S. Department of State. Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in the Americas. 2022.

Mexican Institute for Competitiveness. Economic Integration and Security in North America. 2021.

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