Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said visiting U.S. Atty. Gen. William Barr understood the importance of nonintervention in foreign policy, but there was no public indication that the two nations had resolved deep differences about the Trump administration’s plans to classify Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Those killings and others have emphasized Mexico’s soaring homicide rate, much of it linked to organized crime, which controls the lucrative trafficking of drugs to the United States. If designated, Mexican drug gangs would join dozens of other international organizations on similar blacklists, including Islamist, separatist and other factions with more overtly political goals than Mexican drug syndicates — which, while extremely violent, operate on a for-profit principle. The United States is also the source of much of the weaponry used by Mexican drug gangs.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 06, 2019 00:45 UTC