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I am honored to have this opportunity to submit this testimony as a statement for the record. Illicit economies, such as the drug trade and wildlife trafficking, organized crime, corruption, and their impacts on U. I have conducted fieldwork on these issues in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The Brookings Institution is a U. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. China and Mexico are key actors whose collaboration is necessary for controlling supply. Yet unfortunately the United States has found establishing counternarcotics cooperation with both countries deeply challenging. Between August and November , China ended cooperation altogether because Beijing instrumentalizes international law enforcement assistance and subordinates it to its geostrategic relationships. A recent U. Mexico continues to calculate that it can get away with only sporadic, minimal, and inadequate counternarcotics collaboration as long as it leverages its ability to hamper or permit the flow of undocumented migrants to the U. If the United States conducted a comprehensive immigration reform that provided legal work opportunities to those currently seeking protection and opportunities in the United States through unauthorized migration, it would have far better leverage for inducing meaningful and robust counternarcotics and law enforcement cooperation from Mexico. Until , China was the principal source of finished fentanyl for the U. Since China scheduled the entire class of fentanyl-type drugs in May , it is the principal source of precursor chemicals for fentanyl. And since many precursors are dual use, they have not been placed on control schedules. Chinese brokers knowingly sell these chemicals to Mexican criminal groups for the production of fentanyl. After more than two years of China purposefully denying counternarcotics cooperation to the United States and failing to mount adequate internal enforcement against precursor flows, Beijing agreed to restart cooperation in November But adroit and appropriately tough U. The U. Department of Justice issued a set of innovative and powerful indictments against Chinese networks selling nonscheduled precursors to Mexican cartels, and the Department of Treasury sanctioned various Chinese firms for their complicity. The denial of visas to various Chinese officials and business executives also proved an effective tool. Nonetheless, China still subordinates its anti-drug and anti-crime cooperation to its strategic calculus and views counternarcotics and law enforcement cooperation as a strategic tool to leverage for its other objectives. Moreover, Beijing rarely acts against the top echelons of large and powerful Chinese criminal syndicates that provide the Chinese government with various services unless they specifically contradict a narrow set of interests of the Chinese government. To demonstrate its commitment, China took several steps in the run-up to and after the November summit between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden, such as sending out notices to Chinese pharmaceutical companies that it was stepping up monitoring and shutting down websites selling precursors to Mexican criminal actors. At the first meeting of the resurrected U. They utilize a wide range of innovative methods that avoid international wire transfers and pose particular obstacles for law enforcement. Worrisomely, Mexican cartels are increasingly sourcing an expanding array of protected and unprotected species in Mexico coveted in China to pay for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals. Because of the potency-per-weight ratio of synthetic opioids, precursor chemicals for fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are uniquely suited to be paid for by wildlife products. This method of payment generates dangerous threats to public health and biodiversity since it can spread zoonotic diseases. Yet China already warns that it is unlikely to deliver cooperation on several of these elements. Beijing is still insisting, for example, that it cannot prosecute nonscheduled substances, claiming the lack of material support laws pertaining to organized crime. Because of economic costs, China also remains unmotivated to mandate and promote KYC laws. A series of crises in the bilateral relationship have hollowed out cooperation. Mexico has played an active role in the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, co-chairing its public health working group. Aware of the U. Acting on U. These pharmacies are highly dangerous vectors of spreading substance-use disorder and potentially overdose death. Shutting down these pharmacies is imperative. But effective prosecution of their operators is essential, otherwise the networks will simply open up new pharmacies selling dangerous drugs. Similarly, lab busting alone, while necessary, is inadequate since fentanyl and methamphetamine labs are easy to rebuild. Yet the Mexican government often does not appear to follow lab busts with investigations, arrests, and prosecutions. Worse, crucial investigations by Reuters have repeatedly revealed that the Mexican government systematically and grossly exaggerates the number of busted labs. Congress and executive branch must strongly condemn such actions by the Mexican government, demand they will not be repeated, and take actions to ensure this. Beyond journalists, honest Mexican officials who want to collaborate with the United States and brave civil society members, environmental activists, and business community leaders who stand up to the criminal groups at severe risk to their lives and the lives of their families often find no protection from the Mexican government. It can merely, and often ineffectively, patrol the streets. Some of these battles now approximate insurgent battlefields and tactics. Less visible forms of violence—disappearances and intimidation of civil society activists, business community members, and government officials—have escalated across the country. Having expanded far beyond illegal commodities, Mexican criminal groups are also increasingly taking over legal economies, such as fishing, mining, logging, agriculture, alcohol production and retail, and public services such as water distribution in various parts of Mexico. The takeover goes far beyond extortion and often seeks to control the entire vertical chain of production. What kind of supply-chain, legal, and other liabilities and risks are there for U. Mexican criminal groups increasingly interact with Chinese criminal groups and fishing fleets. The high presence of Russian spies in Mexico also raises the possibility of their increased relations with Mexican criminal groups. Overall, Mexican criminal groups govern an expanding scope of territories, economies, and institutions and people in Mexico. Since Mexican drug cartels have diversified their activities into a wide array of illicit and licit commodities, primarily focusing on drug seizures close to the source is no longer sufficient for effectively disrupting fentanyl smuggling and criminal networks implicated in it. This includes countering poaching and wildlife trafficking from Mexico and illegal logging and mining in places where the Mexican cartels have reach, acting against illegal fishing off Mexico and around Latin America and elsewhere, and shutting down wildlife trafficking networks into China. These are all increasingly important elements of countering Mexican and Chinese drug-trafficking groups and reducing the flow of fentanyl to the United States. Congress could request regular, if closed-door, reports on these aspects of cooperation. The United States should continue encouraging China and its chemical and pharmaceutical industries to adopt the full array of global control standards. The United States should continue developing packages of leverage on Chinese actors and when appropriate continue with its effective policy of denying U. Specifically, it should concentrate on mobilizing a subgroup of countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region and include methamphetamine in the portfolio of actions. These countries carry important weight with China on law enforcement efforts. In its law enforcement engagement with the Mexican government, the United States should prioritize:. The United States should also continue to seek the restoration of joint U. Congress and executive branch must strongly condemn actions by the Mexican government that threaten the freedom of the press and jeopardize the safety of journalists, especially when they are U. Designating Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations FTOs would enable intelligence gathering and strike options for the United States military, such as against some fentanyl labs in Mexico. But the number of available strike targets in Mexico would be limited, and the strikes would not robustly disrupt the criminal groups. Neither would the FTO designation add authorities to the economic sanctions and anti-money laundering and financial intelligence tools that the already-in-place designation of Transnational Criminal Organization carries. Moreover, such unilateral U. The United States should be ready to resort to significantly intensified and intrusive border inspections, even if they significantly slow down the legal trade and cause substantial damage to Mexican goods, such as agricultural products. The United States should develop packages of leverage, including indictment portfolios and visa denials, against Mexican national security and law enforcement officials and politicians who sabotage rule of law cooperation in Mexico, facilitate cartel activities, and undermine law enforcement cooperation with the United States. The United States also has crucial opportunities to strengthen its own law enforcement actions against dangerous drug supply by reconceptualizing the counternarcotics effort more broadly as against all activities of criminal actors smuggling dangerous contraband. This would include:. Synthetic opioids are the source of the deadliest and unabating U. Since , drug overdoses have killed over 1 million Americans, 1 a lethality rate that has increased significantly since when synthetic opioids from China began supplying the U. In , the number of fatalities was ,; 2 in , it is estimated to have been , The structural characteristics of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, including the ease of developing similar, but not scheduled, synthetic drugs and their new precursors—increasingly a wide array of dual-use chemicals—pose immense structural obstacles to controlling their supply. Yet, unfortunately, the United States has found establishing counternarcotics cooperation with both countries deeply challenging. In fact, in recent years, cooperation with both countries has been deeply inadequate as both China and Mexico hollowed out antidrug collaboration with the United States. China ended cooperation altogether because it instrumentalizes international law enforcement assistance and subordinates it to its geostrategic relationships. Mexico continues to calculate that it can get away with only sporadic, minimal, and inadequate counternarcotics collaboration, and unresponsiveness to key U. Unscrupulous Chinese brokers, acting in violation of U. In May , after years of intense U. As a result, instead of shipping finished fentanyl to the United States, Chinese brokers switched to shipping precursor chemicals to criminal groups in Mexico for the synthesis of fentanyl there. Some of these precursor chemicals have been scheduled, but others remain unscheduled, in part because they have widespread use in the legal manufacturing of chemical products and pharmaceutical goods. Nonetheless, even when Chinese brokers sell nonscheduled chemicals to Mexican criminal groups, they often supply these precursors and pre-precursors with the explicit knowledge that the drugs will be synthesized into fentanyl and distributed in the illegal market. Chinese sellers sometimes accompany the chemicals with recipes of how to synthesize illegal drugs like fentanyl from the precursors they provide. They purposefully cater to drug trafficking groups in their directed Spanish advertisements that often bundle together uncontrolled fentanyl precursors, common cocaine adulterants, and unscheduled methamphetamine precursors. After more than two years of China purposefully denying counternarcotics cooperation to the United States and failing to mount adequate internal enforcement, Beijing agreed to restart cooperation in November Its principal motivation was to stabilize the U. In January , the resurrected U. High-level Chinese officials promised ambitious outcomes, even as non-action hedging did not completely disappear. China also agreed to expand its multilateral engagement on synthetic drug control, such as once again reporting drug data to the United Nations anti-drug agencies. For the first time, China was willing to include several measures on which it had previously resisted cooperation. In one, China committed itself to enforcement cooperation on pill press exports, a vital element of the illegal drug trade enabling the production of lethal, fake pills. China had long shunned regulatory controls on pill presses to maximize its economic interests. China also committed itself to AML cooperation, another element on which China had long denied collaboration with the United States. Previously, U. Overall, U. This time, representatives from Chinese banks, including the Bank of China, attended some of the U. Strengthening AML cooperation is always very useful, since beyond disrupting financial flows to criminal actors, AML investigations generate powerful intelligence on criminal networks. Their collaboration with Mexican cartels is so efficient that they have been displacing the Black Peso Market. Chinese money laundering networks utilize a wide variety of money laundering tools and constantly innovate their methods. Crucially, they often manage to bypass the U. They simplify one of the biggest challenges for the cartels: moving large amounts of bulk money subject to law enforcement detection. Chinese money laundering methods frequently avoid international wire transfers. Instead, they interface with the formal banking systems only within a country—China, Mexico, or the United States, and sometimes only within China. They interact with criminal actors, such as Mexican cartels, through encrypted platforms, burner phones, and codes. Laundering through casinos is analogous to these informal money transfers: Bulk cash is brought to a casino in Vancouver, for example, where the cartel-linked individual loses it while his money laundering associate in Macau wins and pays the Chinese precursor smuggling networks. Other money laundering and value transfers between Mexican and Chinese criminal networks include trade-based laundering, a form of money laundering extremely challenging for law enforcement to counter. An example of trade-based laundering includes Chinese launderers for CJNG buying shoes in China and reselling them in Mexico to give the cartel the necessary cash. In the United States, Chinese money launderers have recently begun using counterfeit Chinese passports to open burner bank accounts. The resale of these goods in China generates further profits for the money laundering networks. Just like in Australia, a primary location of Chinese money laundering, Chinese money laundering networks in the United States are also moving into real estate, in addition to utilizing cryptocurrencies. Other pernicious forms of money laundering and value transfer utilize Mexican wildlife and plant products, such as marine and terrestrial animals and timber. Beyond facilitating crime, they pose massive threats to Mexican biodiversity and risk spreading catastrophic zoonotic epidemics and pandemics, including to the United States. Mexican cartels are increasingly sourcing an expanding array of protected and unprotected species in Mexico coveted in China—for Traditional Chinese Medicine, aphrodisiacs, other forms of consumption, or as a tool of speculation—to pay for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals. Such products include turtles, tortoises, crocodilians and other reptiles, jellyfish, abalone, sea cucumber, and other seafood, parrots, and jaguars as well as various hardwoods. The amount of value generated by such wildlife commodity payments, likely in the tens of millions of dollars, may not cover all of the precursor payment totals and is unlikely to displace other methods of money laundering and value transfer. But the potency-per-weight ratio of synthetic opioids makes their precursors very cheap—their total value likely also amounts to only tens of millions of dollars. Moving bulk cash across the U. In the last several years, U. Resurrecting bilateral counternarcotics enforcement and military-to-military exchanges and increasing cooperation on climate change mitigation and artificial intelligence were all opportunities to do so. Moreover, U. Crucially, in , the U. Department of Justice issued a set of innovative and powerful indictments against Chinese networks selling nonscheduled precursors to Mexican cartels, and the Department of Treasury sanctioned various Chinese firms. As an important pressure tool, the United States denied visas to various Chinese officials and business executives, while the U. Senate delegation to China emphasized the issue. It is unlikely that China will end its approach of subordinating its anti-drug and anti-crime cooperation to its strategic calculus. The United States has long hoped to get China to delink anti-crime cooperation from the overall state of the bilateral relationship and establish strong law enforcement cooperation separate from geopolitics. In fact, China sees counternarcotics and more broadly international law enforcement cooperation as strategic tools that it can leverage to achieve other objectives. Moreover, Beijing rarely acts against the top echelons of large and powerful Chinese criminal syndicates unless they specifically contradict a narrow set of Chinese government interests. Furthermore, China still insists that it cannot prosecute nonscheduled substances, claiming the lack of material support laws pertaining to organized crime. Yet China has been reluctant to adopt such policies, calculating that such measures are too economically costly. Even if China were to robustly cooperate, deaths may not dip: In illicit drug markets, there are always lags of months or years between effective supply actions and retail changes. Besides, Mexican cartels have stockpiles of precursors, and they can source them from other sources, such as India or South Africa. Moreover, if drugs like xylazine which is not responsive to the overdose medication naloxone and other synthetic opioids like nitazenes start spreading beyond the East Coast and escalate in Europe , overdose deaths will spike beyond the currently high levels. Anti-drug collaboration has weakened even though Mexico is an important neighbor and economic partner of the United States and Mexican and U. The Mexican government has hollowed out the cooperation even though Mexican cartels are key vectors of fentanyl production and trafficking and of violence in Mexico and Latin America. Instead, he sought to redefine the collaboration extremely narrowly: U. Previous Mexican governments also sought to direct U. But despite this significant U. Meanwhile, U. The United States emphasized the public health and anti-money laundering elements of the agreement, as the Mexican government had sought. The framework reiterates multiple dimensions of counternarcotics cooperation, including law enforcement. After the United States launched the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, Mexico expressed a welcome interest in promoting public health tools for dealing with drug use. Blaming fentanyl use in the United States on U. Thus, even after the announcement of the Bicentennial Framework, U. It concentrates its interdiction efforts at the border with the United States, and especially on migration, but tends to take few actions against the cartels away from the border. Other U. Some Mexican government agencies are even sharing some intelligence with the United States. In January , acting on U. In September , they extradited him to the United States. Extradition is important: In the United States, top cartel operatives and their political and government sponsors cannot count on escaping from prison and a high rate of prosecution failure. And extradition and subsequent interrogations in the United States allow for the development of better tactical and strategic intelligence by law enforcement. Demonstrating resolve and priority-targeting focus on criminal groups is important. Appropriately, the Biden administration has elevated fentanyl and synthetic opioids to a top-level threat. They are highly dangerous vectors of spreading substance-use disorder and potentially overdose death. Proliferating in places such as the Mayan Riviera and Los Cabos over the past three years, these pharmacies are physical buildings that appear like other Mexican pharmacies. Yet they openly advertise drugs such as antibiotics, anabolic steroids, and prescription opiates and sell them illegally without a prescription. Investigative work by The Los Angeles Times and separately by Vice discovered that drugs sold as Percocet, for example, also contained fentanyl and methamphetamine. During my June fieldwork in Mexico, shop assistants in these pharmacies claimed they could mail any of these drugs to the United States without a prescription. Amid an already terrible drug epidemic, these pharmacies greatly magnify the threats to public health. Unwittingly, intending to buy other medication, they may end up buying drugs causing lethal overdose or addiction. The legitimate veneer of these pharmacies also exposes a much wider set of potential customers to fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, ranging from teenagers to the elderly. Because the pharmacies aggressively target international tourists in major vacation resort areas, they also export the fentanyl epidemic to other regions of the world, such as Western Europe. Further funding the Mexican cartels and other drug trafficking networks, the geographic spread of fentanyl use would augment the global public health disaster. The adulteration of fake medications with fentanyl and methamphetamine is not the sole problem. The unauthorized sale of antibiotics without prescription at these pharmacies also poses other massive global public health, economic, and security harms, such as the intensified emergence of drug-resistant bacteria. Simply seizing illicit pills while letting the pharmacies operate is inadequate. Shutdowns and strong prosecutorial actions are necessary against suppliers. These are important actions to disrupt overdose deaths and addiction. They cannot remain one-off operations and need to be consistently mounted by the Mexican government. It is also crucial not simply to shut the pharmacies down but to mount investigations into their criminal sponsors and arrest and dismantle the networks behind them. Effective prosecution of their operators is essential. If the networks are left standing, they will simply open up new pharmacies selling dangerous drugs. Similarly, lab busting alone is inadequate. Fentanyl and meth labs are easy to rebuild. While they cannot be left operating outside of sting operations and controlled delivery investigations, it is essential to use lab raids to gather intelligence for criminal network mapping and subsequent arrests, prosecutions, and network dismantling. Worse, crucial investigations by Reuters have repeatedly revealed that the Mexican government systematically manipulates data regarding drug lab busts and grossly exaggerates the numbers of labs taken down. Mexico is one of the highest-risk countries for journalists, with many journalists killed and few perpetrators held accountable. Some collaboration has persisted at the sub-federal level in Mexico also. Such honest Mexican officials as well as brave civil society members, environmental activists, and business community leaders who stand up to the criminal groups against all odds and at severe risk to their lives and the lives of their families often find no protection from the Mexican government. It also crucially reflects his unwillingness to strongly confront criminal networks in Mexico. The strategy sought to emphasize socio-economic programs to deal with crime and address the causes that propel young people to join criminal groups. Poorly designed and pervaded by corruption even in the socio-economic aspects, the strategy never articulated any security or law enforcement policy toward criminal groups. Since the s, the many iterations of law enforcement reforms have failed to expunge such infiltration and corruption across Mexican agencies. However, the National Guard is not and could never be an adequate replacement for the Federal Police. The Federal Police, with all its faults, had the greatest investigative capacities and mandates, while the National Guard has no investigative mandates and very little capacity. It can only act against crime in flagrancia or as a deterrent force by patrolling the streets, a highly ineffective strategy. To the extent that the Mexican military or National Guard are deployed to a particularly violent area of Mexico, they mostly only patrol narrow zones, sometimes even without responding to crime battles raging nearby. Some of these battles now approximate insurgent battlefields as cartels such as CJNG increasingly deploy weaponized drones and land mines to depopulate areas and keep law enforcement forces away. Visible violence, such as gun battles and sieges of government offices, have spread to other parts of Mexico, dramatically escalating in places like Guerrero and Chiapas. Through coercion, including assassinations, and corruption, they increasingly seek to determine who can run in the first place. They deploy bribery, intimidation, and violence to shape elections at all levels of the Mexican government. Yet they can get away with that violence. Since more than 30, Mexicans have been killed per year, including in , while more than , remain disappeared. Yet this do-little policy has augmented the impunity that criminal groups enjoy in Mexico and motivated them to resort to more and more brazen violence and acquire progressively greater power. Within Mexico, Mexican criminal groups often control extensive territories where the government has only limited influence and sporadic access and some of which have become outright no-go zones for government officials. In other areas, they dictate governance terms to government officials. Having expanded far beyond illegal commodities, Mexican criminal groups are also increasingly taking over legal economies and public services such as water distribution in various parts of Mexico. The cartels are pressuring, penetrating, and taking over mining, logging, fisheries, mezcal and tequila production, alcohol and cigarette distribution and other retail, and agriculture—and not just avocados. It is also a means of political control. Such legal economy takeovers go far beyond extortion—which is enormously widespread as many businesses in Mexico do not have the capacity to shield themselves from extortion by Mexican criminal groups. Mexican criminal groups, especially the Sinaloa Cartel, often seek to monopolize the entire vertical supply chain. Fisheries provide a prime example. The criminal groups also force processing plants to process the fish they bring in and issue it with fake certificates of legal provenance for export into the United States and China. And they charge extortion fees to seafood exporters. They also force fishers to smuggle drugs. Many more integration benefits can yet be realized. Yet will further economic integration be severely undermined by the lack of rule of law in Mexico? What risks are there in intensifying economic jointness if an economy is increasingly penetrated by criminal actors? Already, Mexican criminal groups regularly shut down major highways and even critical arteries and border crossing to the United States. Significantly improving rule of law in Mexico is essential for increasing economic integration and near-shoring. Mexican criminal groups are also expanding into fishing outside of Mexico. However, there are good reasons to be concerned about the possibility of the growing involvement of Chinese fishing ships in drug trafficking, compounding the extensive problem of Chinese cargo vessels carrying contraband such as drugs and their precursors as well as wildlife. Would the Mexican cartels risk further provoking the ire of U. At least until recently, this younger generation, the Chapitos, did not exhibit such restraints. For example, the apparent decision several months ago by the Chapitos to prohibit fentanyl production in their home state of Sinaloa 75 and relocate it elsewhere in Mexico may be a sign they are responding to U. Yet overall, Mexican criminal groups govern an expanding scope of territories, economies, institutions, and people in Mexico. These profoundly pernicious developments have taken place even as public policy, not just public safety, in Mexico has become increasingly militarized. He has tasked the Mexican military with the management of ports and airports, the construction of critical infrastructure, and even of luxury apartments. The Mexican economy is becoming militarized. They may even undermine them, distracting attention from public safety responsibilities. They also weaken civilian oversight of the Mexican military as the armed forces are no longer solely dependent on budget allocations by the Mexican government. As vast numbers of Americans are dying from fentanyl overdose and Chinese and Mexican criminal groups expand their operations around the world and into a vast array of illegal and legal economies, the United States must strengthen access to evidence-based treatment and harm reduction measures. But supply-side efforts also remain imperative. I also provide suggestions for what law enforcement and policy measures the United States can and should take on its own. Congress should consider the number of arrests and extent of prosecutions by the Chinese government of Chinese criminal actors and pharmaceutical and chemical companies and brokers involved in fentanyl and precursor trafficking as an important indicator of the robustness of cooperation. Beyond KYC laws, the United States could encourage the Chinese government and Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical sectors to adopt the full array of global control standards, including the development of better training, certification, and inspection. Globally, the United States should remain deeply engaged in discussions on how to develop enhanced special surveillance lists and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms for dual-use chemicals, as those that are not scheduled do not have to be declared in exports. Bilaterally and multilaterally, China should be incentivized to adopt more robust anti-money laundering standards in its banking and financial systems and trading practices and apply them systemically in counternarcotics and anti-crime efforts, not merely selectively regarding capital flight from China. Expanding U. Certainly, these measures should strongly inform whether and when China will be removed from the Majors List. It should concentrate on mobilizing a subgroup of countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region and include methamphetamine in the portfolio of actions. Many countries there are experiencing large increases in methamphetamine use and its associated high morbidity effects and are frustrated with China as a source of meth pre-precursors and Chinese drug networks as the meth trafficking vectors. China is very focused on not losing influence in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region and a joint initiative between the United States and the region on drugs will help motivate China to engage in responsive and responsible law enforcement cooperation. Such a line of effort within the Global Coalition and beyond would help the United States and its partners to send coordinated messages to push Beijing in a preferred direction on law enforcement efforts. If the United States implemented a comprehensive immigration reform that provided legal work opportunities to those currently seeking protection and opportunities in the United States through unauthorized migration, it would have far better leverage to induce meaningful and robust counternarcotics and law enforcement cooperation from Mexico. The United States would thus be better able to save U. Nonetheless, even absent such reform, the United States can take impactful measures. It should also continue to request that Mexico systematically shares seized drug samples with U. The arrival of a new government in Mexico at the end of may provide opportunities for such strengthened cooperation. In the continued absence of such cooperation, the United States has various policy tools to consider. Some U. An FTO designation would enable intelligence gathering and the conduct of strikes by the U. However, such unilateral U. Calls for U. Meanwhile, the number of available targets in Mexico would be limited. Most Mexican criminal groups do not gather in military-like visible formations. Many fentanyl laboratories already operate in buildings in populated neighborhoods of towns and cities where strikes would not be possible due to risks to Mexican civilians. Moreover, fentanyl laboratories would easily be recreated, as they already are. Nor would the FTO designation add authorities to the economic sanctions and anti-money laundering and financial intelligence tools that the already-in-place designation of Transnational Criminal Organization carries. The latter designation also carries extensive prohibitions against material support. Additionally, an FTO designation could limit U. Clauses against material support for designated terrorist organizations have made it difficult for the United States to implement non-military and non-law-enforcement policy measures in a wide range of countries, such as providing assistance for legal job creation or reintegration support even for populations that had to endure the rule of brutal terrorist groups. The FTO designation could also hamper the delivery of U. To be in compliance with material support laws, the United States and other entities must guarantee that none of their financial or material assistance is leaking out, including through coerced extortion, to those designated as FTOs. Yet such controls would be a significant challenge in Mexico where many people and businesses in legal economies have to pay extortion fees to Mexican criminal groups. The attempted controls could undermine the ability to trade with Mexico, as many U. Nonetheless, encouraging a far stronger rule of law in Mexico is crucial for sustaining and augmenting near-shoring to Mexico. However, the United States could resort to significantly intensified border inspections, even if they seriously slow down the legal trade and cause substantial damage to Mexican goods, such as agricultural products. Even with the significant improvement in vehicle and cargo inspection expected to be reaped from the scanning technologies the Biden administration authorized for deployment at the U. Under optimal circumstances, U. Joint fentanyl and precursor busts and seizures could take place near the production laboratories and at warehouses. The inspections of legal cargo heading to the United States could take place close to the production and loading site in Mexico. Under the Merida Initiative, the Obama administration, in fact, sought to develop with Mexico such systems of legal cargo inspection inside Mexico and away from the border. But if Mexico refuses to act as a reliable law enforcement partner to counter the greatest drug epidemic in North America, which is also decimating lives in Mexico, the United States may have to focus its much-intensified inspections at the border, despite the economic pains. Furthermore, packages of leverage, including indictment portfolios and visa denials, should also be developed against Mexican national security and law enforcement officials and politicians who sabotage the rule of law in Mexico, assist Mexican criminal groups, and perniciously hamper law enforcement cooperation with the United States. Calls to undertake such sanctions by Republican senators led by Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee should be carefully and diligently explored. Importantly, the United States has significant opportunities to rapidly strengthen and smarten up its own measures against Mexican criminal actors participating in fentanyl and other contraband trafficking. Appropriately, the Biden administration has sought to intensify and harmonize U. In March , for example, it launched Operation Blue Lotus to coordinate cooperation across Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs, Homeland Security Investigations, and other federal, state, tribal, and local law enforcement agencies. However, since Mexican drug cartels have diversified their activities into a wide array of illicit and licit commodities, primarily focusing on drug seizures close to the source is no longer sufficient for effectively disrupting fentanyl smuggling and criminal networks implicated in it. This includes countering poaching and wildlife trafficking from Mexico and illegal logging and mining in places where the Mexican cartels have reach, acting against illegal fishing off Mexico and around Latin America and elsewhere, and shutting down wildlife trafficking networks that extend into China. To effectively counter fentanyl-smuggling actors requires a whole-of-government approach—not simply on paper, but truly in implementation against criminal networks, not merely fentanyl flows. A wide range of U. These include U. Moreover, the focused collection, analysis, and reporting of intelligence by a variety of U. To such end, crimes against nature should be elevated as a collection and reporting priority of the U. Intelligence Community, and within the U. National Priorities Framework. Stove-piping in information and intelligence gathering across a wide set of illicit economies should be ended. Gathered information and intelligence should be shared with interagency analysis groups intent on interdicting the illicit international flow of scheduled drugs and endangered species. Such efforts could be enabled by significantly increasing the number of USFWS special agents and by augmenting their respective participation in interagency Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces investigations. The relevant intelligence on crimes against nature to understand and dismantle criminal networks could include names, phone numbers, license plates, courier accounts, bank accounts, and wiretapped conversations. Enhancing intelligence collection and law enforcement action opportunities to cover all activities of dangerous and nefarious actors, including crimes against nature, requires enlarging the pool of USFWS special agents and uniformed wildlife inspectors at the U. The DEA appropriately enjoys strong capacities, currently maintaining a force of 4, agents. As a corollary and imperative effort, U. Importantly, wildlife trafficking should be designated as a predicate offense for wiretap authorizations. Currently, federal legislation at the foundation of wildlife crime prosecution, at the core of which is the Lacey Act, often entails proof of knowledge on the part of the defendant, a requirement that wiretap authorization would greatly facilitate, in the interest of prosecuting transnational wildlife trafficking and convicting criminal syndicates. Many fentanyl-trafficking networks are not narrowly specialized in fentanyl or drugs only. Fentanyl smuggling networks have powerful protectors among corrupt government officials worldwide. Incentivizing better cooperation from the Chinese and Mexican criminal governments is important. Expanding the intelligence-gathering aperture and mandating and resourcing a whole-of-government approach in support of U. Foreign Policy. Sections Sections. Sign Up. Vanda Felbab-Brown. Related Content US-China relations and fentanyl and precursor cooperation in China and synthetic drugs control: Fentanyl, methamphetamines, and precursors. China China and synthetic drugs control: Fentanyl, methamphetamines, and precursors Vanda Felbab-Brown March 23, Tanz, R. Matt Gladden, Nicole L. Merianne Rose Spencer, Arialdi M. What went wrong? Government and law enforcement officials, Washington, DC, spring Homeland Security Investigations, Cornerstone Issue no. More On. Bridging the gaps: Allison Minor on US foreign policy, conflict prevention, and fragility. Czin, Ryan Hass October 18,

How to Buy Prescription Drugs in Mexico and Bring Them into the U.S.

Puebla buying Ecstasy

It's no secret that prescription drugs can be expensive in the United States. In fact, they are often among the costliest items on a person's healthcare bill. So, it's not surprising that many people seek out less expensive alternatives, including buying prescription medications in Mexico. But before you cross the border to buy your meds, there are a few things you should know. In general, you can find most of the same medications that are available in the United States, but they may be sold under different names. And while some Mexican pharmacies are well-stocked and reliable, others are not. Additionally, you should always check with your healthcare provider before taking any medication, as some may interact with other drugs you are taking or have adverse side effects. How do you know if a given farmacia is reliable? Generally, you can trust the nationwide farmacias. The Costcos and Walmart farmacias are also trustworthy. There are other, local, chains as well. The types of farmacias to avoid are those in tourist areas, those that are kind of a hole-in-the-wall, and advertising Viagra and antibiotics in English. Generally, be very cautious of those. Antibiotics, opioid pain killers such as Oxycodone and Percocet not Tramadol , ADHD drugs, anti-anxiety medication such as Xanax and Ativan, and some sleep medications all require prescriptions from a Mexican doctor. If you need one of these types of drugs, bring your existing prescription or pill bottle to a Mexican doctor. Usually they will write you a prescription for a reasonable fee. Many farmacias, like Farmacia Similares, even have doctors on-site to assist with prescriptions. If you come across a farmacia offering to sell you any of the above types of drugs without a prescription, you should be very suspicious. Only certain doctors can prescribe these drugs and special farmacias dispense them usually associated with a hospital. They are not readily available, and certainly not available over the counter OTC. Many common drugs that are available in the United States can be purchased in Mexico, usually at a significant reduction in price, and sometimes over the counter. But before you take your prescription across the border or plan on visiting a Mexico pharmacy, you may want to learn more about what drugs are available, and which ones will be allowed back across the border. Here's a list of drugs that are generally available at a Mexico pharmacy. You must get a prescription from a Mexican doctor to purchase these drugs. For those, only special doctors can write prescriptions and only a few farmacias can fill them, usually those associated with a hospital. These are the drugs which are being found to be laced with fentanyl and are not worth the risk. The availability of a drug at a pharmacy varies. Also, the price of a given drug can vary greatly from pharmacy to pharmacy, in the same town. So, it pays to shop around or ask the local expats where the best, trusted farmacias are located. Some people may be concerned about the quality of prescription drugs they can buy in Mexico. In general, it's perfectly safe and legal to purchase prescription drugs in Mexican pharmacies and bring them back into the United States for personal use. The Mexican government has strict regulations in place to ensure that all prescription drugs sold in Mexico meet international quality standards. And, most Mexican pharmacies are licensed and insured by Mexican health authorities, so you can be confident that you're getting safe and reliable medication when you go to the pharmacies we recommend. Some drugs in Mexican pharmacies need a prescription to purchase. The best way to get a prescription is to visit a Mexican doctor. Mexican doctors are licensed and qualified to prescribe medication, and many of them offer telemedicine services that allow you to consult with a doctor online or over the phone. To get a prescription, you'll first need to find a doctor who offers telemedicine or walk-in services. You can do this by searching online. Or you can visit the pharmacy to see if there is one on-site or adjacent to the pharmacy. Once you've found a doctor, you'll need to provide them with your medical history and current list of medications. The doctor will then be able to assess your condition and may prescribe medication that's available in Mexico. If you're already taking prescription medication and need a prescription to purchase it in Mexico, bring your current prescription with you when you visit the Mexican pharmacy or doctor. This will help ensure that you're receiving the same medication. The pharmacist can look up the drug to get the Mexican equivalent. If you need a prescription from a doctor, the pharmacist will advise you to do so. Many farmacias have doctors located in offices adjacent to the farmacia and some have doctors who work in the farmacia. If you're starting a new course of prescription medication while in Mexico, be sure to ask the Mexican doctor for a copy of the prescription in case you have any difficulties taking it across the border or need to get a refill in the U. It's important to note that not all medications available in Mexico will be available in the United States and Canada. If you're prescribed a medication that's not available in the U. You cannot have non-approved medications in the U. Mexican pharmacies do not accept U. And the drugs you buy from a Mexican farmacia will not be covered by your U. This means that you will have to pay for your medications with cash. Be sure to factor this into the cost of your medications when you're budgeting for your trip. The cost of drugs varies depending on the medication. Like in the U. In most cases, you will find significant savings on medications by shopping at a Mexican pharmacy. And the American dollar goes far in Mexico due to a favorable exchange rate. It's important to research which drugs are available and make sure you're only bringing back those that are legal to possess in the United States. Doing so will help ensure a hassle-free border crossing and avoid any potential problems with U. Customs and Border Protection. You will need to show your Passport or approved ID at the border when you return to the United States. You are required to declare prescription medications. If you choose not to declare and the border agents find them, and you do not have prescription for them, they may take them from you. Read the CBP statement on bringing drugs into the U. With that said, the FDA will allow you to bring unapproved drugs into the United States under these conditions:. Read more on the FDA Website page on personal importation. Finally, be aware that bringing prescription drugs into the United States from Mexico is subject to Customs and Border Protection regulations. For more information on what drugs, you can and cannot bring across the border, please read the Customs and Border Protection list of allowed medications. With a little planning, you can get the medications you need while you're traveling in Mexico for much less than in the U. Just be sure to check the rules and regulations before you leave so that you don't run into any problems when returning to the U. Mexican pharmacies can be a great resource for cheaper prescription drugs. But before you buy, be sure to do your research and understand the risks. This will help ensure that you get the medications you need without any problems. Mexpro has no association with U. Customs and Border Protection, the U. If you still have questions about what could be carried across the border, please contact the U. Drug Enforcement Administration or U. Did you know that medical tourism is becoming popular in Mexico among U. Mexico has put a lot of money into improving medical facilities and training doctors at top schools in the U. If you need a medical procedure that is not affordable in the U. On Mexpro's blog you can find more information on Medical tourism in Mexico. What is the Mexico Free Zone? List of U. Who Is Banjercito? If you purchased with us before, you can quickly re-issue a new policy. Click here to set up a password. Already Have Your Password? Get My Quote Now. Sign Up For Our Newsletter.

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