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Mexico’s Foreign Minister says it is ‘unthinkable’ to reduce crime without reducing flow of U.S. weapons

Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard says that stopping violence in Mexico without reducing the flow of weapons from the U.S. is “unthinkable”.

His comments were made November 3 during an international conference at El Colegio de México. During the conference titled, The business of lethality: arms trafficking to Mexico, Ebrard highlighted that in Mexico, a little more than 45,000 weapons have been seized, while in the USA there have been 355.

Ebrard said the voilence in Mexico will not be reduced if the flow of weapons from the U.S. does not decrease since those weapons end up in the hands of drug traffickers. He said that he has exposed the need to curb illegal arms trafficking to Mexico during meetings held with U.S. authorities.

“If we do not reduce that flow, it is unthinkable to reduce that violence,” he said.

Marcelo Ebrard explained that as part of the investigations to present Mexico’s lawsuits against arms manufacturers in the U.S., they detected through the Attorney General’s Office that 55,996 weapons were seized in Mexico between January 1, 2020 and September 22 of 2022 that came from the U.S. , primarily from the states of Arizona and Texas.

“What we have done now in Washington is to approve our common action plan and set the metrics,” he said adding that the United States has not undertaken forceful action in terms of arms trafficking control for which he considered the legal resources filed by the Mexican Government fundamental and timely since it is about a strategic objectives to guarantee security.

Academic Sergio Aguayo, who was part of the conference, highlighted the importance of the demands that the Mexican government has promoted.

“It is an unprecedented event, and not only unprecedented, but brave because it means that the Mexican government is finally willing to take concrete measures to defend Mexican citizens who are killed with U.S. weapons,” he said.