Hillary Clinton's Mexico message

last updated 8 January 2015

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was simply stating the obvious," said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial, "when she acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. demand for illegal drugs has fortified Mexican narco-mafias and fueled that country's drug violence." Mexico has been waiting for an honest mea culpa, now maybe the U.S. and its neighbor can work together to solve a problem that hurts us both.

It's big news that Hillary Clinton is buying into Mexico's "convenient and long-standing tradition" of blaming the U.S. for its problems, said Tim Padgett in Time. It would be more surprising still if the U.S. plan—which would put 500 more federal agents in border states, cut off southbound gun smuggling, and "lasso more of the billions of dollars heading back to drug cartels"—actually "prodded Mexico to take its obligations more seriously."