Trump, López Obrador to work to stem flow of weapons to Mexico

MEXICO CITY >> Mexico’s foreign minister said Saturday that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump had agreed to take swift action to stem the flow of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico, where a drug war is raging.

López Obrador told Trump on a phone call that he proposed “both countries use technology to close the border, to freeze the traffic of arms that is killing people in Mexico,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters.

“And Trump responded that he thought it was a good idea that this could be done using technology,” Ebrard said, adding that the idea is to install at all border crossings advanced lasers, X-rays and metal detectors, capable of even detecting chemical products.

That could staunch not only the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico but also the trafficked drugs into the United States, said Ebrard.

Increasing the number of Mexican intelligence agents in the United States is another proposal that is on the table.

López Obrador told Trump “he was very concerned” that gang members used .50-caliber, armor-piercing rifles during the breakout of violence in the northwestern city of Culiacan over the attempted arrest of Ovidio Guzmán, a son of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Mexico estimates that upward of 80% of the weapons used by criminals in Mexico enter from the United States, and it long has lobbied U.S. officials to take gun trafficking more seriously, arguing that the number of guns in the country make it much harder to clamp down on drug traffickers.

Ebrard assured there was no need to change laws in the United States to stop the illegal flow of weapons into Mexico.

Gun control of any kind is a hot-button issue in the United States ahead of 2020 elections and could face resistance from the gun lobby, especially the powerful National Rifle Association lobby group, which strongly has resisted restrictions after recent U.S. mass shootings.

The two leaders agreed that U.S. and Mexican officials would meet in the next few days to discuss options, and would announce actions to “freeze” illegal imports of weapons into Mexico through U.S. border crossings.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. authorities.

The discussion came in the wake of the bungled arrest attempt.

Cartel gunmen surrounded about 35 police officers and national guard members Thursday in the capital of Sinaloa state and made them free Ovidio Guzmán.

His brief detention had set off widespread gunbattles and a jailbreak that stunned the country.