Vernuccio’s View: Growing Danger From Mexico

https://lopezobrador.org.mx/2018/07/01/amlo-emite-su-voto/

Leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known also by the nickname AMLO, will be the next president of Mexico. He believes that “All have the right to immigrate to the United States.” His approximately 53% victory was facilitated by votes from the 12 million Mexican nationals living in the United States.

https://lopezobrador.org.mx/2018/07/01/amlo-emite-su-voto/

Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (Credit: lopezobrador.org.mx/)

Obrador’s leftist politics could turn Mexico into another Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. If that occurs, the number of his citizens seeking to leave will skyrocket, flooding the U.S. with even more refugees.

But there is an even more immediate danger: Leftist regimes in the Western hemisphere have established military ties with Russia, China, and Iran.  Adding Mexico to that list, particularly considering its large presence on America’s southern border, presents a threat of the highest magnitude.

A growing danger from Latin America already exists. Moscow’s has placed landing facilities for nuclear bombers and a spy station in Nicaragua.  Russia’s Sputnik News notes that Nicaragua’s military training center was “constructed with Russia’s assistance. The U.S. Naval Institute  revealed in 2016 that “in late April Russia started shipping shipped T-72B tanks to Nicaragua.”

The America’s Report has also linked aragua’s leader, Daniel Ortega, to Iran “Iran has been making inroads into Latin America for some time, especially in countries with strong Chavista influence, including Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and dangerously Nicaragua, which is very close in distance to the US… We have to consider that Iran has already used Hezbollah to attack what it considers enemies in Latin America, when they blew up the Israeli embassy and a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the early -90’s killing and wounding hundreds…When Ortega became President of Nicaragua in 2007, [Iranian leader] Ahmadinejad considered his ascension so important that he was in Managua to attend the inauguration…Nicaragua is providing a safe place where Iran can send Revolutionary Guards and move them in and around the region.

In 2015, Pravda   reported “Russia and Cuba agreed to train Cuban specialists in Russia. This long-term strategy imposes obligations on Russia to supply its allies in Latin America with advanced weapons, including air defense systems, aircraft and warships.

The Center for Security Policy calls Russia in Latin America “The problem we have chosen to ignore…Russian activities closer to home in the Western Hemisphere have been largely overlooked or perhaps just disregarded. There have been reports of  increasing Russian  military cooperation with countries in Latin America that are hostile to the United States, mainly Cuba, Venezuela, and  Nicaragua.  This includes agreements between Russia and the above named countries that would enable Russia to place their naval logistic facilities in Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan territory.

Beijing’s presence is increasingly being felt within the Western Hemisphere as well.

Paul Coyer, writing for Forbes reports that “Beijing’s investments globally are rarely undertaken with solely business goals in … In the case of Huawei, as the largest telecommunications equipment supplier in the world [with] strong ties to China’s military and intelligence services, [has a]  considerable role in building many of Latin America’s telecommunications and information networks. [that is] is a boon to Chinese intelligence.

An Official Chinese document notes that “Since 2013, the Chinese leadership has set forth a series of major initiatives and measures on strengthening China’s relations and cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean in a wide range of areas.

The document notes:

“China will actively carry out military exchanges and cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries, increase friendly exchanges between defense and military leaders from the two sides, strengthen policy dialogue and set up working meeting mechanisms, conduct exchanges of visits between delegations and vessels, deepen professional exchanges in such fields as military training, personnel training and UN peacekeeping, expand pragmatic cooperation in humanitarian relief, counter-terrorism and other non-traditional security fields, and enhance cooperation in military trade and military technology.”

A leftist regime in Mexico City — should it follow the Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan examples — could prove to be a major concern.

Frank Vernuccio serves as editor-in-chief of the New York Analysis of Policy & Government. 

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