Trump’s Insane Boasting About How to Deal With Mexico

 

By David Starr

 

It’s like something out of the 1950s…or the 1890s. Donald Trump is imitating past U.S. war mongers and imperialists, at least verbally. 

 

Trump has claimed that he wants to take over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and to strike at Mexican drug cartels. Truly, the insanity is so damn obvious. Assisting Trump in his deranged imperial fantasy, the New York Times published what amounts to a propaganda piece. Its report, “This Is What Makes Us Rich: a Sinaloa Cartel Fentanyl Lab,” has inaccuracies and disinformation. 

 

In the report, the authors actually claim that they visited a fentanyl lab in Sinaloa, Mexico. They state, the People’s Dispatch quotes them, that “We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.” The authors also claim that the “lab” was a “kitchen.” 

 

Some of the authors’ claims were effectively contradicted by a Mexican medical doctor, named Alejandro Svarch Perez. He states that it is impossible to manufacture fentanyl in a kitchen without being seriously affected or dying. “This means that, when a person is exposed to a potent synthetic opioid by inhalation or mucosal contact, even an amount as small as 4 or 5 grains of salt, can produce a degree of toxicity that compromises the life of the operator.”

 

Further, “There is no scientifically described physiological phenomenon know as ‘lethal tolerance to toxicity.’ It is not possible to make fentanyl as referred to in the note.” Svarch states that specialized equipment is needed to manufacture fentanyl. 

 

Similar to Svarch’s statements, Juana Penaloza Ibarra, a chemical analyst at the Navy Department, says that the images she analyzed does not show that it’s possible to use a series of chemical precursors to manufacture fentanyl in a kitchen. She added that a lab is needed with appropriate machinery and personal protective equipment. Penaloza concludes that, “there are insufficient elements to demonstrate that the information presented” in the New York Times is inaccurate for the manufacture of fentanyl in a kitchen.

 

Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum concluded that the report “does not contain credible information.” She further says that Mexico is combatting the commercialization of fentanyl for humanitarian reasons. Sheinbaum also states that there are close to 100,000 people in the United States who die from fentanyl. She asks, “do you believe that fentanyl is not manufactured in the United States? Where are the drug cartels in the United States that distribute fentanyl in US cities? Where does the money from the sale of fentanyl go in the United States?”

 

But the New York Times backs up the report, saying that there’s evidence that shows the authors were correct. It figures. Perhaps the Times is wary of possible consequences from Trump if it accurately portrays the situation. Trump, after all, has sworn that he will halt the sale of fentanyl in the USA as a priority. And there are people who won’t question him, despite him being wrong much of the time. For example, it’s people in the USA who sell and consume fentanyl. The addiction is in the USA, and that’s not the fault of Mexico.

 

Trump also boasts that he will impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, claiming that Canada will be the “51^st state” of the USA. Both countries of course responded with defiance, justifiably so. Former Prime Minster Justin Trudeau of Canada said that there will be a snowball’s chance in hell that his country will be subservient to the USA. Sheinbaum, responding to Trump’s insane idea of naming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” used a map in a press conference to show that the USA stole Mexican territory in the 1848 war between Mexico and the empire. She asserted that the western part of the USA should be named “Mexicana America.” Greenland also responded defiantly.

 

Trump has been considering U.S. special operations against Mexican drug cartels, and without the Mexican government’s permission, again a potential violation of another country’s sovereignty by a U.S. leader, or in this case, tyrant. Trump had this idea in 2020 and perhaps would do secret, special operations. Typical of an empire.

 

Quoting Charles Pierson in CounterPunch, “Trump’s plans for Mexico are consistent with his overall imperial designs.” So, Trump and the right-wing are dwelling in the past, rather than learning from it. And imperialism has been consistent within the USA’s foreign policy. 

 

Trump also wants to purchase Greenland from Denmark, which controls Greenland.

 

Another perverse idea from Trump is to retake the Panama Canal. That resulted in protests by Panamanians.

 

On the Rational National show, with host David Doel, footage of Sheinbaum is shown where she asserts her displeasure over Trump’s insanity. It’s not only her that’s against Trump. Most of the world is against him, who consider him a laughing stock.

 

Trump has considered what he called a “soft invasion,” of Mexico, but knowing the U.S.’s imperial Foreign policy, it has had a habit of overdoing it.  However, according to Pierson, “President Sheinbaum has dismissed the possibility that there will be a ‘soft invasion’ from the US, but stressed that Mexico will always defend its sovereignty.”

 

It could be Trump’s bark is worse than his bite. Knowing the right-wing and Trump though, the past is preferable to the present.