On December 14th, the beginning of the operational projects that make up the new Mexico-United States Bicentennial Agreement, 2022-2024, was formalized, with the creation of the Mexico-United States High Level Security Group.
With the formalization of this group, it is intended to combat violence, impunity, corruption, murder, illegal arms trafficking, the transfer of drugs of all types, human trafficking and migrant trafficking, as well as cybercrime and money laundering.
With the Bicentennial Understanding, Mexican government collaboration with the government of President Joe Biden on security matters was resumed after bilateral cooperation was limited after the indictments and arrest of General Salvador Cienfuegos, former head of the Secretariat for National Defense (Sedena) in October 2020, accused of alleged links to organized crime by the drug enforcement agency (DEA).
The diversity of issues on the agenda of the High Level Security Group reflects the enormous challenges that the viability of the Understanding will entail, which implies promoting effective multi-level and multi-actor management in asymmetric institutional and legal contexts.
The Understanding replaces the Merida Initiative (2008), whose program achieved certain benefits such as professional training for police officers, the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) and Sedena, the donation of equipment and prevention programs, but without managing to reduce the problems that the new Understanding aims to achieve.
The High Level Security Group will set up five working groups: definition of strategies to reduce violence; prevention of cross-border crimes; prosecution of criminal networks; defense and marine issues; and a Binational Cooperation Committee that will promote the coordination of the Group’s agenda and, in general, of the Understanding.
The challenge for these groups is their viability with criteria of effectiveness and guided by investigation, intelligence, prevention and law enforcement activities, under a multi-level and multi-actor management model.
Another question is whether the US government will prioritize problems on the agenda of the Understandably, will interest be maintained in the main criminal actors –the detention of the children of Guzmán Loera– or greater attention will be given to a public health focus –reduction of drug consumption, such as fentanyl in its different variations–, as proposed priorities of the new anti-drug policy designed by the National Office on Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), launched in April.
Other initiatives proposed by the National Office in the new US drug plan are: expanding access to evidence-based treatment; promote racial equity in drug policy; support evidence-based prevention to reduce substance use among young people; and reduce the supply of illicit substances.
Here, the relevance, for the Biden administration, of a policy of prevention versus a policy of police (“enforcement”) is appreciated.
The challenge is the viability of such a shift in focus, considering that prevention issues have not been a US government priority in its different anti-drug programs over the past 40 years.
In the new policy of the Understanding, the involvement of the governments of the northern and southern US border states is also fundamental, considering that they are drug trafficking areas. On the Mexican border about 55% of intentional homicides are committed nationwide.
It is also necessary to reactivate the Border Governors Conference to follow up on the Understanding and its state and local dimensions, as well as the agreements of the North American Summit of Leaders, on November 18, including the one on combating transnational crime.
The viability of the Understanding will depend on an effective governance of the various policies that are associated, an effective multilevel coordination and a higher political priority of the Biden government on the issue of security, as is the case with migration policy.
This is even the biggest political impact of the migration issue being evident in the current situation, contrary to the issue of drug consumption and its related policies.
A year after the start of the Biden administration, US policy has spawned opportunities and challenges in terms of new migration management, climate change, vaccination against Covid, reactivation of the economy and infrastructure program, and the security agenda has been left on second plan with its new focus on public health.
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