A summit between President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week in Mexico City is useful, but do not expect a lot of progress to be made on border security, Chris Landau, a former ambassador to Mexico in the Trump administration, told Newsmax on Monday.
Mexico will not have much to propose to the U.S. because the Biden administration abandoned policies under former President Donald Trump that were working to stem the rising tide of illegal immigration across the border, Landau told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
"The border crisis kind of dwarfs everything else on the U.S.-Mexico agenda," Landau said. "At this point, I think the Mexicans look at this and say, 'Hey, we were working with Trump, and everything was just fine. And you guys [the Biden administration], you trashed all of Trump's rules when you came in here, so this is really on you. Don't kind of look to us to fix a problem that you just created.'
"I don't think the Mexicans are really going to be offering a lot of additional support for the United States on this."
Before Biden's visit, the Mexican government arrested Ovidio Guzmán, a son of former Sinaloa cartel strongman Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who is serving a U.S. prison term of life-plus-30 years on continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking and firearms charges. Ovidio was indicted in Washington on drug trafficking charges along with another brother in 2018. He allegedly controlled a number of methamphetamine labs as the cartel expanded into fentanyl production.
Landau said the arrest was a welcomed gesture, but Mexico needs better drug enforcement, and the U.S. must do better with drug education and rooting out criminal drug enterprises on its side of the border.
"The truth is, the problem isn't going away when you just catch one person," Landau said. "The real problem is structurally [with] so many of these precursor chemicals for fentanyl are coming into Mexico, and there are now fentanyl labs that are making this stuff in Mexico. That's what we got to go after. Catching one guy isn't going to move the needle on that.
"I would hope that the Mexicans in their own interests, as well as in ours, crack cracked down on that. But we've also got to do more in this country in terms of drug education and stopping some of the criminal networks that are operating in our own territory."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.