 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections, and it's here on a Thursday. And Carlos Suarez joins us from Puebla, Mexico, where he should be. And we are talking about U.S.-Mexico relations at a crossroads, actually at a crisis, and therefore a crossroads. Why Mexico is restricting its cooperation these days. That's different. Things have happened. Things have happened the last few weeks we should talk about. So Carlos, what's going on? I mean, from a bilateral point of view, an international point of view, and of course, from a criminal justice point of view. Yes. Well, thank you, Jay. Welcome. And it's always a pleasure to reconnect and give you some perspective here. Mexico is, of course, a very important country for the U.S., however, given the complex world and Russia, China, Europe, everything else, often it goes off the radar. But it is a very important, for many reasons, obvious, not just the geographic proximity, but such an important second largest trading partner, the major, the motherland of the largest population of minorities, which are in some cases, majorities in the parts of the Southwest. That is the Mexican population in the U.S. But more importantly, there's a very complex relationship that has been that way forever, really, for a long time, at least in the modern period. But more recently, there's been an interesting set of developments that perhaps many people have not been able to follow. A little about, maybe about a little over a month, more than a month ago, the United States government arrested the former defense minister of Mexico, General Cienfuegos, his name, and he was the defense minister in the previous administration for six years from 2000 and gosh, what would it have been 2012 to 2000 and oh gosh, let me get it right. Wait. Two years ago, the current president came in in 18. So in 2012 to 2018, they have six year terms in Mexico. The previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto, had a defense minister, this guy. And the U.S. government basically did a secret sort of grand jury indictment, and then they arrested him in Los Angeles, basically on drug charges that he was, you know, colluding, conspiring with the drug cartels. It came as a shock to Mexico. This is, you know, again, this is a cabinet official, high level. Military, although they have had more increase in corruption, in general, they have tended to be a much more, let me say, you know, an institution that has a very, you know, sacrosanct that's been very, you know, well respected and yet taking on the drug war, of course, it has been influenced as well. Can we stop there for a minute and look at the motives of the United States Attorney Department of Justice, who decided to go after this guy? Sure. Yep. Is this a Trump thing? No, no, no. It's a bar thing. Well, it's an international relations thing. What is it? It's all of the above. I mean, clearly, the Justice Department basically, they alleged they had evidence, wire tapings from his, you know, cell phones in which, you know, they had obviously reason to arrest him. I mean, they wouldn't do that. I don't think otherwise. Perhaps the bigger shock is not that he was arrested. That was a shock enough. But suddenly, about a month ago, the U.S. government handed him over back to Mexico, turned him back over. And it was as a result of very strong, you know, pressure from Mexico because they were, the president was, in Mexico, was very, very upset that the U.S. government had not given them a heads up, had not told them anything about it. They simply arrested him. And so asserting sort of, you know, sovereignty and obviously criticism of this thing, the Mexican government threatened the U.S. government saying, look, you keep him and we will stop cooperation on all drug, you know, the drug war. Let me ask the same question, although I can see your answer coming. So was that a Trump thing, a William Barr thing, a Department of Justice thing, a State Department thing? What was that? I mean, so you have this one move a month earlier, then a complete turnaround a month later. What is going, where does this fit with foreign policy? Where does this fit with criminal justice in this country? And for that matter, in Mexico? Well, for the U.S., of course, again, you know, it purports to be fighting this drug on war and the rule of law. And so... Was that true? You know, because, I mean, see, I think if we roll this back a little bit and look at Trump's, you know, arrival four years ago, we find that he's a merciless son of Mexico. He's beating up every way, every day, just to demonstrate to his base, he's a big guy, in my view anyway. And then he wants to build a wall, Mexico should pay for it. He's been so mean, so nasty, unnecessarily so. I mean, if Amlow was a stronger figure, he really would have got ticked off. Maybe he is ticked off. He is very ticked off, absolutely. So now it goes along and we haven't had this kind of high-profile criminal indictment kind of experience in the past four years. All of a sudden, in the waning hours of Trump's administration, we find his Department of Justice, which is controlled by Barr, and of course Barr is controlled by Trump, they decide they're going to go after Mexico again. It's like the refrain, you know. We haven't heard it for a while, but it comes back. Like he's revisited and now he's chasing this high-level guy around in New York using the power of, you know, and I really wonder if it was really essential for criminal justice of stopping the drug trade or what, because it doesn't seem like it was essential. It doesn't seem like it was really part of a larger move. We haven't seen that much high-profile indictment of this nature, all of a sudden this. And of course with Trump, everything is political. So I'm just asking, what are the politics, and then what are the politics in coming out again? It sounds like he got caught. It sounds like he had to back up and walk back on this whole thing because it was a mistake. It also sounds like the cartel is heavily involved in all of this. What do you think? Well, we don't know all those inner details. It's clearly a very political dynamic, and yes, it was certainly a pressure put in. The U.S. government arrested him, you know, and it was a way of putting pressure on Mexico. I don't think they anticipated the backlash, and I suppose one could say, given the crisis in our own diplomatic service, probably not a lot of good advice there, Pompeo is off giving priority to other areas. He's never visited Mexico. There hasn't been a lot of interaction with the Mexican government here directly. But again, it just seemed like a very messy situation, and maybe in a more ideal situation they should have consulted closely or at least brought them in at the very last minute. And I think that's what angered Mexico, that suddenly, almost like James Comey learning about his firing on the news, the Mexican government suddenly sees this arrest in Los Angeles is shocked, and so they put a lot of pressure and send a very strongly worded message saying, look, this is not good, we're supposed to be cooperating. If you don't bring, you know, let him free, we will refuse to continue cooperation. Well they did let him free, and then here, let me add something else that happened just a few days ago, suddenly the Mexican Congress has now passed a new law that is restricting cooperation on this, and basically it's going to be regulating the activity of drug enforcement agents requiring them to, you know, to go through a lot of hurdles, to share information with the Mexican government, and taking away their diplomatic immunity. So it's going to hamper relations. Now what's going to happen, because we're in this transition now, we're going to have a new administration, what, in 30 plus days. So Biden is going to be stepping now into this kind of messy situation, trying to obviously, you know, improve relations, cooperate more. But it's been curious, because Amla, who is a left-wing populist, he actually had a, you might say, almost like a, reached a, I guess, a, an accommodation with Trump, because back in the summer of last year, you might recall there was a lot of pressure on Mexico, they, they, Trump threatened tariffs if Mexico did not stop the flow of those Central Americans in the southern border. And so Mexico was basically arm-twisted and forced to, to do that, to force to, you know, put its forces on the bottom, I'm sorry, in the southern border, and in exchange, Trump backed away and no, no more tariffs. But meanwhile, I mean, again, not a lot of engagement with Mexico, you know, for Trump, it's just, you know, it wasn't a priority area. It's bullying. Oh, absolutely. Right. And what, what a clear theory when, when Amla says, we're going to, we're not going to cooperate with you anymore. Is he limiting that to drug trade, you know, police information, drug agents, or, or is he including the work, I shouldn't say work, it's not really work, of the things that Amla was doing that Mexico was doing at the border to accommodate Trump under that agreement. I would say that at least the main focus is on the cooperation on the drug war. So that it's really the presence of drug enforcement agents and, and, you know, fighting the drug war, let's say, not at this point, not so much the immigration thing. So that kind of is a little bit delinked. But so, and keep in mind, I mean, Mexico and the US have had a cooperation really for almost the last 40 going on almost 50 years since the mid 1970s, at least, beginning back in the right after the Nixon administration actually was during the Nixon administration, they began in those days, it was known as Operation Condor where it was mostly the flow of marijuana that was there and the US came in and basically began a program of eradication and helping to, you know, train and supply and even to this day, they supply a fair amount of material, you know, military, you know, hardware to the Mexican military and government very kind of under the radar but a lot of support for that to help with the drug war. Does it work? You know, I mean, certainly the Mexican military has become more professional, has taken on this task, but it is also, again, because of the engagement that, you know, that has also made them susceptible to corruption and no doubt Mexico has a fair amount of corruption. And so that was the reason there was no I'm sure there's a lot been written and studied about the US drug war activities south of the border, not only Mexico but so many other countries, Colombia comes to mind, where they do precisely the same thing and ultimately do it wrong and muck it up. And that's been going on for decades and decades and decades. I don't know if Biden fully appreciates this or whether he's going to be able to take action to correct it. But the reality is our America, America's, our America's policy, Mexico and south has really been a disaster. This is one example. Sure. And in a relative neglect, I mean, basically, as I said earlier, often, you know, the attention, perhaps somewhat understandably, focuses on the big, you know, China, Europe, maybe Russia. Nevertheless, I mean, Mexico is so important for the US and it's not just the trade, which is extremely important. It is the drug crisis, of course, the drug war, because the result of this tension right now is that many fear that this may effectively, you know, lead to more, well, more difficulty, you know, on cooperating about the drug war and in the end resulting in more, more drugs coming over, a victory for the drug cartels, because basically they can operate with more impunity. In other words, yeah, so that that's the gist of it. And put in, you know, keep in mind now that, again, we're going to see a transition to Biden. And so Biden is going to be stepping into this. On one hand, he is expected to begin engaging Mexico more on many other issues, and perhaps also holding Mexico more accountable on issues of human rights and democratic governance. Let's, it's fair to say Trump has never been interested in Mexican domestic politics or even fighting the drug war. I mean, it's all about building a wall and just stopping the migrants. But there's a lot more going on. And, you know, to, to, to tackle these drug cartels, obviously it's a very delicate issue with a lot of moving parts. And the U.S. has had, again, a presence in Mexico, as it has in Colombia and other parts to try and do this. But a country like Mexico sees this as a bit offensive. It challenges their control over their country, their sovereignty. Well, is that the average, the average person, the average student in Pueblas? How do they feel about this? Wouldn't they welcome, you know, somebody to help them deal with the cartels? It's, again, it's a mixed bag. I mean, on one hand, they understand it because, of course, for Mexicans, I mean, the crisis and the violence that goes with it, the corruption, the impunity is just horrible. And so anything to try and fix it is, you know, better than doing nothing. It's not, there's no simple solution. And again, the corruption is quite rapid in Mexico, including in law enforcement and even in parts of the military. So people don't have a lot of trust in that and the Mexican side is. And then there's a healthy skepticism, understandably about the U.S. operating in their country, you know, both as a bully, but also, you know, not sharing, you know, their own intelligence and but mostly the, you know, the bully status. I mean, the U.S. and Mexico have always had an asymmetrical relationship. The U.S. is the big power. It is the big bully. You know, even before Trump, it has always had that tension there. Have we made mistakes? You know, we deserve to be suspect. We've made so many mistakes in dealing with Mexico. You know, arguably looking back on it, Carlos, and looking at the emergence of the cartels and all that seems to me that the United States had its head screwed on right in terms of foreign policy after World War Two could have could have avoided a lot of the problems that Mexico has right now. I mean, for the benefit of Mexico, don't you think? Well, I mean, again, in the end, it's Mexico that probably has to define its future more than the U.S., but it has to deal with this big neighbor breathing down its neck and obviously pressuring it. So it just depends on, you know, where you're looking at it from, from the U.S. perspective, well, you know, the problem is in Mexico and, you know, they have all the corruption and all that. For the U.S. side, it's like, well, and I would remind you myself as an American of Mexican heritage, the drug problem would not exist if there was not a voracious appetite for narcotics and drugs in the north. In other words, this is a result of the demand and the and obviously the supply that today Mexico continues to provide, you know, everything from methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine. Increasingly, marijuana is no longer the factor. I mean, that's produced now more and more in the U.S. And obviously, you know, as it's been legalized in more and more places, but it is these other hard drugs and these new designer drugs. They are coming in from Mexico and they continue to. And they are what are fueling this drug crisis and all the corruption and violence and it continues. It's rampant and that will not go away. As long as there's a steady demand for those drugs. And so, you know, the fight goes on, the fight, if you want to call it that. But it's it's it's been a challenge. Is in Mexico also a conduit for drugs that come from somewhere else? Oh, sure. And indeed, you know, back in the days in the 70s and 80s, it was Colombia that began, particularly, you know, the transport of cocaine, primarily over time, the Mexican cartels suddenly stepped in by the 90s. It was Colombia back in the 70s and 80s. You know, the days of Pablo Escobar and all the cartels there. It's not like it disappeared, but it certainly became less problematic in Colombia and suddenly Mexico, you could say, became Colombianized. Because back in the 70s or 80s, you didn't have powerful drug cartels in Mexico. They emerged. And if you see the Netflix narco series, you can see how the Colombians in some ways helped to spawn some of that and anyhow. So today it is Mexico that is, unfortunately, you know, festering with with these numerous cartels, the power, the impunity. And, you know, it's a real challenge. You can, you know, you can make some a reasonable assumption. You can construct a reasonable assumption that the original action by the Department of Justice was legit. That it was not politicized and it was not a Trump maneuver. I don't know if I fully accept that, but let's assume that for a moment. Now, when the second part of the scenario, the second shoe to drop, so to speak, the one that happened most recently when they gave what was his name, Escobar? Cien Fuegos. Cien Fuegos is the general Cien Fuegos. Yeah, when they when they gave him back, that really that stinks. It was it was so shocking and bizarre. It's like, wait, what happened? How and what? And I guess because it's not as if Mexico was saying, hey, we will we will put him on trial. Now they have said, well, we will open an investigation. But again, the criminal justice system in Mexico is he's walking. You know, he's he's he's a free man. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And and so, yeah, as you suggest there, I mean, you know, the benefit of the doubt is obviously they must have had some evidence to make this case but because it involves such an important, you know, neighboring country and we're talking about a defense minister. I mean, over the years, Mexico has extradited many of these drug, you know, we, of course, know Chapo Guzman and there have even been other U.S. I'm sorry, Mexican government officials that have been at lower level, mid level. Here we're talking about the Minister of Defense. This is the Secretary of Defense for six years. And suddenly he gets arrested at the LAX airport and on a secret, basically, it was a secret grand jury in New York that had died in him and accused him of conspiring with the drug cartels and so they had intercepted messages in which he had accepted bribes, at least that's what it said. Now, how true that is. I mean, I would have to guess that it would seem very risky to do something without having some proof. Now, the other shock is just that they suddenly reversed and let him go. Well, they they means Trump. Yes, yes, a bar basically those three guys had a discussion about this. Yes, my question to you is, you know, what what were the elements of that discussion? Is this really about diplomatic relations? Try to make Mexico feel good? I doubt it. Is this about his base? I'm not so sure. Is this about, you know, is this, you know, what comes to my mind? Let me just throw it out as a possibility. Is that there was something else in the mix, some other transactional? May I use the term quid pro quo? Sure. You know, and I think the quid pro quo, if it is that case, and I'm not sure it is, but it is, of course, that that Amno has cooperated with Trump. He basically gave him, you know, he gave him a response to that crisis of the migrants, the caravans that we saw, you know, last year. And he basically clamped down on the southern border for many in Mexico. Basically, he agreed to do the US's dirty work, you know, take care of that border. And in addition to that, to set up these this very controversial policy, the remain in Mexico, where the asylum seekers are forced to stay in Mexico and not cross to the US. Normally, they would do that. Now, Biden has said immediately in office, he's going to, you know, get rid of that policy. And, you know, those who seek asylum would have a fair hearing and be allowed in the US at the moment. Right now, there are thousands of these asylum seekers in these literally like refugee camps on the border of Texas there, Matamoros, just the other side of Brownsville, Texas, and, you know, conditions that make it look like, you know, you're in some, you know, dangerous, unhealthy, scary, and then the midst of a COVID pandemic. So very kidnapping. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, we will not really know all the inner details, but was there, you know, a quid pro quo? Was this maybe Trump's kind of response to, Hey, you helped me out before. OK, we'll let you have him. It doesn't work that way, though. And I don't think Trump doesn't, you know, I'm doing this for you as a favor because you did a favor for me before. It's more like I'll do you a favor, but I expect something in return in the future. Yeah. So, so query what what could Amalot do for him? You know, I mean, it does it does suggest that maybe Amalot could do something for him in the election, which is the only thing Trump cares about. I don't see that it is an issue at all. And I mean, there's what could Mexico do? Nothing. The one thing that it does have is, hey, if you're going to play hardball, well, we're going to play hardball too. And that's what they said, we're not going to let you cooperate anymore. We're not going to let you even function here. And all these drug enforcement agents, guess what? You know, they're not going to. Now, they haven't been, you know, they haven't been kicked out of the country, but this new legislation that was just passed in Mexico is basically tied their hands. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see if that holds or what's going to happen, because again, the U.S. has had this ability to operate in Mexico relatively openly. And these DEA agents, they've been there since certainly firmly since the mid to late 70s operating in Mexico. For many Mexicans, it's a very sensitive issue because, you know, here you have, you know, again, a foreign country, you know, operating rather freely within their country. And I think I think I got an idea about what happened here just to throw it at you. So M.L.O. says, you know, if you if you don't release them back to us for whatever reasons, we are asking that whether they be diplomatic or corruption or something, we want them back. And if you don't give them back to us, we are going to stop cooperating with you. And that will make us stink. You know, you will look bad. You will look bad at a time, but just before or around the time of the election, I guess, and you are going to suffer some really bad press if it appears then, you know, that you have you have you have cost the United States an advantage in dealing with the drug trade. Yeah, I mean, that's that's kind of that's probably the closest thing as best we can tell that happened, because most certainly and what is in the press is that the Mexican Foreign Secretary, the you know, the Foreign Secretary, he basically told Bar the U.S. had to choose between either trying this guy or putting him on trial or having continued cooperation. That was the way they put it in a very stern letter. And as a result, again, you know, we suddenly saw the rather shocking release of this man. And, you know, so but but without a lot of details, not background and, you know, not a lot of public, you know, information just sort of happened very quickly and kind of got buried under all the crazy news of the elections in these past, you know, weeks. And so again, I just say, unless you're like paying attention, it goes under the radar. But this in a normal time would have been dramatic news. You know, I mean, again, it's not it's not a normal thing to happen. And and and then now we have the transition coming. So what is that vote for the relationship? It's going to you know, you talk about Biden being more moral, insisting on Amalot doing moral things and human rights and whatnot. And you mentioned before the show that with that, that's more nuanced than the relationship under Trump. Sure. And it's more complicated for Biden. Yeah. But can you can you describe that environment? Can you describe, you know, what the traps are? The you know, the potholes are for Biden going forward and and and how he can deal. I mean, can you give him some advice? Carlos, he may need this advice. Well, look, I mean, in general, and it's important, the U.S. needs to be engaged with Mexico. There's just too many things going on. Obviously trade and economic issues are part of it. A lot of it is also, again, just the growing ties both ways. The movement of populations, you know, labor markets. I mean, everything at the moment is a bit, you know, obviously hampered by the pandemic, but nonetheless, the U.S. depends on migrant workers that come from Mexico and vice versa. Mexico depends on those migrant workers to send back money. It's a huge, huge source of revenues to Mexico. But I think, you know, you mentioned nuance. I mean, I would just say it's going to get more complicated in the sense that we're going to see the U.S. government under Biden beginning to engage more with Mexico, holding it more accountable and perhaps taking more scrutiny of what's going on in Mexico in a way that Trump did not. He was not really interested in it. He looked the other way. To me, that's healthy for Mexico. It's going to force them, you know, to be more accountable. But in part, that's why I think Amlo literally just a few days ago, after the Electoral College, he was one of the last foreign leaders together with Bolsonaro and Brazil, these two populist leaders. They were the last ones to congratulate Biden. I think if I'm not mistaken, Kim Jong-un is the only world leader now who has not. But up until now, Amlo had not done so. And many were like, hey. What held him up? And does that suggest that Biden is going to have a problem in dealing with him? Well, that's certainly some of the concern because, I mean, he by putting it all so long, it's kind of getting off to a tough start, because many saw it as well. Maybe he's beholden to Trump. Maybe he's fearful of Trump, you know, and what if Trump does win? And I kept asking myself, does he really think that? Is his foreign secretary telling him that? Or is the foreign ministry, is that what they're interpreting that Trump might win? I don't think so. I don't know. Part of me thinks, you know, Amlo, who does not have a lot of interest in foreign affairs, foreign policy, his focus is all just, you know, internal. I don't think he's particularly savvy or diplomatic about these things. His foreign secretary is Marcelo Ebrard, and he may be a future president of Mexico. He's certainly got ambitions to do so. And he is a more sophisticated sort of global, you know, let's say globally oriented person. But Amlo is very much, you know, he's a populist, but he's from the left. And yet in a curious way, he almost developed a, I don't know, you could say a friendship, certainly an agreement with Trump that, hey, don't bother me anymore. And, you know, we won't talk bad about you or anything. So they kind of kept their distance. That's going to change because Biden, definitely under the new administration coming forward, will revisit and then maybe re-engage Mexico on many of these issues. And some of them are going to be a little more messy for Amlo because he, you know, as a populist, he has a disdain for experts. He, you know, he has all the solutions and it's messy. So it's going to be, I think we're going to be in for an interesting transition to see how it plays out. And the other puzzle about this, you know, the criminal justice system and the drug war, all that's been left kind of up in the air. Is it going to continue? Is the cooperation going to come back? Because it's very, very politicized in Mexico now. And this new, the Congress has passed this new legislation restricting the drug agents. And that really kind of ties their hands in a way. Why did they do that? Well, it's a sort of, it's a lot of it is sort of nationalist, you know, pride and, you know, anti-American sentiment. It is a desire to, you know, assert their own sovereignty. Like, hey, we control our own country. It's not right that you should be here. So it's driven by that, obviously. So what that tells me is that if Biden would like to, you know, get some control over issues with the AMLO and assert himself into Mexican affairs, as opposed to what Trump was doing, then the people who are the constituents of AMLO are going to say, no, no, no, you have to be proud and independent. You can't let Biden push you around. Am I right? And I think in part, yes. And then there's a strong, you know, sort of very nationalist sentiment within, you know, this movement, the political party of the president. And, you know, as a leftist, they're also very critical of, you know, sort of neo-liberalism and sort of the whole sort of free trade, et cetera. So there's a very strong anti-American tinge to that. Now, that's always there in Mexico. It always has been. But, you know, as long as they don't, you know, as long as they can cooperate on certain things, they can sort of complain about other things. But right now, if they're not cooperating, it's going to be interesting to see, you know, what the result would be. Yeah. And particularly if it's going to mean more, you know, if it's going to give the drug cartels kind of more freedom to kind of just operate as, you know, without any fear. I mean, that practically exists already. That's right. Yeah. So let me flip the issue just for a minute, for a remaining time. We don't have much is that, you know, there are many Mexicans who live in this country, citizens, like yourself. There are many Mexicans who are not citizens and who are recent arrivals from Mexico living in this country. There are many Latinos who, you know, have feelings about this sort of thing, about the diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico and point south. They must, I'm guessing here, they must have some kind of consciousness, awareness of this whole event that you've described. And I wonder how they feel about it. I mean, politically, or if not politically, just, you know, just among themselves. What does this mean to the Mexican and Latino population inside the U.S.? You know, here, I would have to say, probably just those that are really kind of more plugged in and informed about the issues, because it's a very, I mean, there's a lot of sort of background diplomatic sort of political things that is not apparent. In other words, the headline just say, okay, the Mexican defense minister has been arrested, a drug charges, nothing new, of course. I mean, they're all corrupt, et cetera. Then this more recent event where the U.S. sends them back, I mean, that part is just the part that's confusing to many of us. I don't think many people are, you know, really aware of that or if they are, well, at least for Mexicans, it's like, well, okay, yeah, we want them back here because we will take care of them in our system. But no, people don't have a lot of faith in the criminal justice system in Mexico. So it's seen as a sham. It basically reinforces the idea that it's all politics and there's a lot of dirty secrets going on that we just don't know. It's fair to say just as you had a healthy dose of skepticism in Mexico, a lot of that, a lot of even conspiracy theories and very abounding. And again, Amlop, because of his own populism, I mean, he has also been very critical of the U.S. and the long history of its involvement in Mexico. So, but I would have to say that this particular incident and issue is not necessarily on the radar of most Mexicans in the U.S. or the Mexican-American population. This is something that has more to do with defense and security issues and diplomacy. And those are areas that, you know, the average person, whether Mexican or American, yeah, they're just not really to either interested in or hard to understand. But that's why we have to kind of ask these questions. What's going on? And we don't really know. We can only speculate. But it certainly adds a complication. And again, if we were not living in these strange abnormal times, this would be a pretty big deal. And it would be a very, you know, tense, tense relationship. I think once Biden comes in, I mean, obviously he's going to do his best to try to improve the relationship. He will surely try to meet with the Mexican president, inviting him or going. And that's important. But the engagement that we're going to see is going to be kind of resisted by Mexico, because under the new leadership, they are very much, you know, taking a very strong nationalist position and, you know, trying to take care of their own house internally and not so engaged with foreign affairs. So what that suggests, last thought, but that suggests to me is that all this, take all our conversation here today. And there's another drug kingpin. He may have had political office in Mexico in similar circumstance with a similar federal grand jury operating in Manhattan or somewhere else. The United States will be less likely to indict him, less likely to go through this same process again. It'll be, am I right? Even under Biden, it'll be hands off. And that same official, if he's smart, is probably not going to spend a lot of time in the U.S. given the possibility. So like this general himself, you know, finds himself at LAX and guess what, the federal agents arrested him. So it's got to be complicated. It's a very interesting scenario and it tells us, and I'm sure it will tell us more going forward so much about the Trump administration and criminal justice here and the relationship. Really interesting discussion, Carlos. So thank you very much. I think we're going to learn more about this in time. More stuff will come out right now. We're still just speculating what's the background behind it. We don't really know. And so it's going to continue to intrigue us and all of this happening in the moment of a transition in the U.S. government. So well, it's going to be interesting to see. But I'm sure as months combine, as we get into the new transition, we'll want to revisit this and see what's the state of Mexico and U.S. relations. You know, so we're going to be doing on-course shows for the next couple of weeks rather than live. And I'll see you in the new year. Police, Navidad and all. I guess I only have one more question. Is it how do the Mexican people feel about the all this Mishigas over, you know, Trump and the election and Trump's campaign to overturn it and Biden's campaign to be inaugurated properly? How do they feel? Well, like all of us, it's a bewilderment, like confusing, messy. But I would say on the whole, I mean, Trump did not have a lot of support in Mexico. And so for the most part, people are pleased to see that he's not being reelected. I think they see that as better for Mexico, even though, again, maybe the AMLO himself might have preferred the continuity with Trump because, you know, better the devil, you know, and they had a nice arrangement. So the leader of AMLO probably is, you know, a little more nervous because he's going to suddenly be pressured more. But I think the population on the whole and, you know, Mexican society is probably welcoming the transition and they see it as being more, you know, more tolerant, more, you know, humanistic, et cetera. Thank you, Carlos. Happy Christmas and a happier New Year. Yes, absolutely. Take care, Jay. Always good. Always good. Take care.