The U.S. administration has had it with some of Mexico’s drug cartels—just some.
I mean, can you blame it? Political leaders have tried to model good business practices on and off for several years recently.
But some cartel misbehavior has remained unpleasant, and they may be enriching uranium.
So, the answer?
Sanctions.
These are punitive measures that stop evil in its tracks everywhere. Russia is a good example. Sanctions are meted out almost daily over Russia’s “special military operation,” which is so special that it includes party favors.
But, special or not, according to the latest intelligence, the sanctions are working: Russian potato prices have gone sky high, forcing hungry Russian masses to turn to SpaghettiOs. No, it’s not a nice thing to do, but it tells the Russian people, “You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” maybe add a little ketchup.
The real trick to using sanctions: deliver serial sanctions—one at a time, and save some up for holidays and special events instead of laying them all out at once, which, as anybody can tell you, wouldn’t be as much fun. “More sanctions for Russia today. Different from Tuesday’s.” This can carry slow news days for months.
And they’re a mystery. Nobody ever knows what these sanctions are. They could be curses: “May demon spirits turn your cats into visitors from hell.” Take that with your SpaghettiOs, Evgeny!
Okay, back to my real story. How do you sanction drug cartels? “Breaking News: U.S. hits cartels with another sanction. Mules and Coyotes Protest.” It need go no further than that as news.
Taking a good journalistic guess, I’d say sanctions like the following might be coming:
1. Drug exports to the U.S. will be forbidden during the month of September and the first two weeks in October. (See how this leaves other months for later punishments and still allows for Day of the Dead celebrations.)
2. U.S. exports of surface-to-air missiles reduced by 27 percent over three years.
3. Closure of all Mexican 7/11s.
4. Drug deliveries by submarine forbidden in the Gulf of America.
5. Withdrawal of American roosters from all cockfights.
6. Cartel representatives in the U.S. will be asked to remove that black bar over their eyes for face deportation.
7. Drug members’ retirement annuities in the U.S. will be confiscated.
8. Cartel dance troops will be prohibited from performing in the U.S., including Greenland.
9. Funding for the “beautiful golf course and casino” in Tlaquepaque on hold.
10. No more preferential treatment for trafficking in underground tunnels.
11. And a clever trick invented by this U.S. administration: Cartel use of profits to turn judges and politicians into billionaires subject to international oversight before any approvals are given.