Washington steps up Mexico drug war help

Washington steps up Mexico drug war help
By Andrew Ward and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 16 2009 21:13 | Last updated: April 17 2009 01:42
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/50c5399e-2ac1-11de-8415-00144feabdc0.html


Barack Obama on Thursday vowed to step up backing for Mexico’s war on drug cartels, acknowledging the US shared responsibility for the wave of violence along the countries’ border.

The US president vowed to accelerate aid to help Mexico clamp down on drug gangs and to close loopholes in US gun laws to stem the flow of arms across the border.

He also promised to push the Senate to ratify an arms-trafficking treaty the US signed 12 years ago but never enforced. The pledges follow talks with Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, during a three-day trip by Mr Obama to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexico has recently surged up Washington’s foreign policy agenda as drug-related violence threatens to destabilise the country and spill into US border areas.

Mr Obama said: “I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone. Demand for these drugs in the US is what is keeping these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the US. We have to do our part.”

Mr Obama said he stood by his campaign pledge to push for reinstatement of the lapsed Clinton-era ban on assault weapons, despite fierce opposition in the US. But he said his priority was tightening enforcement of gun laws and ratifying the inter-American convention against gun trafficking.

The administration of former president Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1997 but the US remains one of only four countries out of 33 signatories not to have ratified it. About 90 per cent of weapons seized by Mexico from drug traffickers come from the US.

Before his trip Mr Obama designated three Mexican drug cartels under the foreign narcotics kingpin act – a move that allows the US to block or seize US assets controlled by the groups.

The US last year launched a three-year, $1.4bn aid programme to help Mexico tackle drug crime and Mr Obama has requested more funds from Congress, but the money has been slow to reach Mexican authorities.

Mr Obama is to arrive in Trinidad and Tobago on Friday for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas. He began the Latin America trip by offering an olive branch to one of Washington’s most bitter critics, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

In a widely published newspaper opinion piece Mr Obama said he would seek a new approach towards Latin America. In an accompanying TV interview he said he would treat Mr Chávez as he would any other leader.

“Too often the US has not pursued and sustained en gagement with our neighbours,” Mr Obama said, in a thinly veiled criticism of the Bush administration.