In 2017 there were 33,341 murders in Mexico, up 33% from the previous record in 2017. The cartels continue to fight over control of the drug trade. The end market for that drug trade is not Mexico it’s the United States of America.
The statistics for 2018 are difficult to find but for 2017 70,000 people in this country died from drug overdoses nearly three times the number dying 18 years ago. That is more than the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars.
We have heard the gruesome stories about cartel violence. People beheaded, boiled alive, fed to wild animals. The annual revenue from the drug trade in Mexico is estimated to be $29 billion . That is what Microsoft reported for the first fiscal quarter of 2019, $29 billion in revenue.
A corporation this big needs a lot to generate that revenue. They need a market. That market is the United States. They need a product or a product line. The cartels have a complete line of drugs ranging from marijuana to fentanyl. They need a sales force. The gang sales people like MS-13 cross the border and find ways to penetrate the markets in the US from the metro areas to rural markets. Doctors who made millions writing prescriptions for pain pills are being corralled and imprisoned. People have legitimate pain issues and turn to the Mexican option. They need to import the products. An open border makes that a lot easier. They need protection in Mexico to produce the illegal products. They either buy or intimidate everyone from a taxi driver to the highest elected officials to allow the products from the poppy fields to the marijuana farms to the cocaine coming from Columbia to exist.
At this point one might ask, is Mexico a legitimate country or just a rogue nation run by criminals for the benefit of the criminals, politicians and those who gain from enterprise. To the detriment of the victims of the violence murdered in Mexico and the US and the 70,000 plus citizens of this country who died from the products coming across our border from Mexico. We went to war over the 3,000 killed in the World Trade Center but turn our backs on the 70,000 killed by our neighbor in Mexico and their utter inability to get control of their country. We will spend billions for the rehab and medical aid for those the country of Mexico has infected with their treacherous drug war on this country but not a few billion to stop the flow of drugs and the people who deliver the drugs that kill our fellow citizens.
Take a minute and thank your Democrat friends who sell the baloney that it’s racist to build a wall, that we can solve the Mexican drug problem by letting it flow freely into our country, and that Mexico is truly a country anymore and deserving of our foreign aid.
Very good blog. The main stream media is silent on this issue