The Drug War’s Damaging Impact on Mexico and Its Neighbors

Abstract

Felipe CalderÓn, Mexico’s president from December 2006 to December 2012, left a troublesome legacy for his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto. One of CalderÓn’s first initiatives as president had been to authorize a military-led offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels. That strategy backfired badly. During the CalderÓn years, an estimated 60,000 people perished in the drug war that convulsed the country. Another 20,000 people went missing during that period, and many, if not most, were likely victims of the carnage as well.¹ The plague of drug-related violence also became a worsening problem for the United States and Mexico’s neighbors in Central America.