Mexican president says lack of ‘hugs and embraces,’ not drug cartels, to blame for fentanyl crisis

Mexican President André Manuel López Obrador said Friday a lack of “hugs and embraces” are to blame for the U.S. fentanyl crisis, the latest in a series of remarks on the topic by the Mexican president, who has sought to dismiss the role that murderous drug cartels play in shipping the deadly drug into the U.S.

The controversial Mexican leader told reporters the U.S. fentanyl crisis was caused by “a lack of hugs, of embraces.”

“There is a lot of disintegration of families. There is a lot of individualism. There is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces,” López Obrador said, according to The Associated Press. “That is why [U.S. officials] should be dedicating funds to address the causes.”

The remarks were the latest effort by the president to deflect renewed scrutiny in the U.S. on the role of Mexican drug cartels in bringing fentanyl, which is 50-100 times more potent than morphine and can be lethal in tiny doses, into the U.S.

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The drug is primarily made in Mexico using Chinese precursors and then smuggled in across the land border, primarily at ports of entry, but also between ports. 

The DEA said in December that “most of the fentanyl trafficked by the Sinaloa and CJNG Cartels is being mass-produced at secret factories in Mexico with chemicals sourced largely from China.”

There were 14,000 pounds of the drug seized last fiscal year at the southern border and more than 11,000 pounds this fiscal year so far. There were over 70,000 deaths recorded due to fentanyl in the U.S. in 2021, according to the National Institute of Health.

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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in Washington, D.C., Jan. 12, 2023. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

Attorney General Merrick Garland recently told lawmakers Mexico was helping the U.S. with the issue of fentanyl, but could still be doing more. He also said the epidemic is being “unleashed on purpose” by Mexico.

Multiple lawmakers have since called for cartels to be designated as foreign terrorist organizations, and some have raised the possibility of military action to take out the drug labs in Mexico.

“We’re going to…