One thing Trump tried to do after getting inaugurated was considering Mexican cartels terrorist organizations, and for that he was attacked by Sheinbaum for violating Mexico’s sovereignty. But, at least as far as I’ve read on the topic (whcih is not a lot to be fair), nobody actually explains why that’s the case. I mean at a glance you’d think the Mexican government would benefit from such an action, or at least I did. It’s pretty obvious to me I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, so does anyone here have it?
Edit: Thanks for the answers. Now it makes sense.
It gives the US a reason to militarily intervene in Mexico that they can use whenever they want. It acts as preemptive justification for invasion.
Exactly, Mexico knows how we did Afghanistan.
The US invaded on the argument that they were harboring terrorists intent to harm America.
It’s pretty clear Trump knows that wartime Presidents have better approval, and like Putin, he’s an expansionist and wants excuses to take other countries’ land.
After the War on Terror was declared, it essentially meant that the executive branch could essentially go to war with any country if they call them terrorists without former approval from Congress.
Sounds unconstitutional
It is, but… you know.
A problem with the constitution is that the framers didn’t expect items to be defined differently than today. No one really expected a mass deployment of troops that wouldn’t be called a war.
Also, the framers didn’t expect Congress to roll over as much as it has to the President.
More generally, the founders wrote the constitution as if every leader will act in good faith. That has proven to be a bad idea, but also how do you even account for that? Their idea was a system of checks and balances, but that failed to account for when one party has control over every branch, and for when one branch goes rogue and starts ignoring the other two branches, as we are seeing now with the executive.
IMO, limiting power (money in the case of a capitalistic society) is the only way. The founders had the right idea with the limitation of power, but they didn’t take that idea to the economic side of things. Force all corporations to be worker owned coops and have a hard wealth cap of $50 million by taxing anything over at a rate of 100%.
Terrorist / Terrorism seems to be a magic word in US law and policy.
If a country has organized crime in their country it’s no big deal. If there are close ties between the rulers and the criminals, that’s unfortunate.
But, if the criminals are now labelled as terrorists, then you get to go on the state sponsors of terrorism list, which comes with all kinds of sanctions and restrictions.
If you look at so-called “terrorist” organizations, there’s almost always elements of “terrorist” activities, but also evidence of other random criminal activities, and often legitimate political activities too. Take Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. Some of their funding came from fuel and drug smuggling. So, where you draw the line between a “terrorist” group and a criminal group is pretty arbitrary. I think most people would say that the Mexican cartels are primarily criminals though. While they do kill people in ways that are intended to send a message, the message is generally “don’t mess with our profits” rather than some political ideal.
Every country has some corruption, definitely including the US. So, what happens if a Mexican politician was accepting bribes from Narcos and passing legislation favourable to them? When does that become the state sponsoring terrorism?
Putting the “terrorist” label on Mexican cartels seems like a prelude to doing things that violate Mexico’s sovereignty. If the cartels are merely violent criminal organizations, it’s a problem for Mexico’s government. If they’re “terrorists” then the US can lob missiles into Mexico, because it has a long-standing policy of violating the sovereignty of countries that “harbor” (i.e. contain) terrorists.
. So, what happens if a Mexican politician was accepting bribes from Narcos and passing legislation favourable to them? When does that become the state sponsoring terrorism?
US has a shaddy history, and near past. Nicaragua contras (freedom fighters???) funded through Columbia/Panama cocaine. Venezuela last election meddling funding Narco gangs to burn things, and previous election, declaring legitimate president to be the main drug lord of the country.
