Mexico vs. Smith & Wesson: the rationale behind Ebrard's anti-gun campaign

The violence and sophistication of narco weaponry in Mexico have increased hand in hand and considerably. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has been forced to deploy military forces in tourist areas such as the beaches of Cancún (the country's most popular destination). At the same time, Mexican chancellor Marcelo Ebrard, a recurring figure in the president's close group who is sounding strong for the 2024 presidential elections, has decided to expand and take the lead in the anti-gun struggle on another front: the legal and diplomatic front. How? By knocking on the door of the US courts and directly suing US arms companies, and taking advantage of Mexico's transitional diplomatic prominence in the UN to advance the campaign.

In the north, the Mexican government filed an ambitious lawsuit in US courts accusing the arms industry of involvement in the crisis of illicit trafficking of firearms from the US into Mexico. Arms companies are accused of responsibility and negligence in the illicit supply of guns and machine guns that end up in the hands of drug traffickers.

In the south, the fight with drug traffickers has forced the Mexican government to deploy armed forces along tourist beaches. Part of the economic recovery on which Mexico depends is tourism. So far in 2021, according to FT data, more than 20 million people have passed through Cancún airport. Maintaining Cancún's tourism viability is a priority for the government.

As is often the case, there is more than one justification for AMLO's actions. In addition to the narrative of combating drug trafficking and safeguarding tourism revenues (which account for no less than 28% of GDP), behind this lies Ebrard's clearest route to Morena's presidential candidacy in 2024.

"Marcelo Ebrard has done a good job, with his team, to control the entry of US weapons into Mexico," AMLO said at a morning conference on 16 December. At the UNODC's Regional Meeting of the Community of Practitioners against Illicit Trafficking in Firearms and Related Crimes in Panama, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented reports on the litigation Mexico is facing against US arms companies. Ebrard himself shared his support for the US anti-gun movement on social media.

When talking about the phenomenon of drug trafficking in Mexico, the lenses tend to focus on the cartels and their protagonists. It is rare to hear about the immeasurable demand for drugs in the US (from which the rest of the business is derived) as part of the equation. It is even stranger to hear about the responsibility of US arms manufacturers and distributors, who base a considerable part of their business on trading indirectly with drug trafficking groups, allowing them to create enough of a threat to the government to nuance and influence its policies.

Recently, Mexico reversed its strategy to combat drug trafficking towards the US arms industry. Its strategy focuses on two main fronts: the legal and the diplomatic.

The process is "United Mexican States v. Smith & Wesson". On 4 August 2021, the Mexican state, through the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Boston against 11 companies that produce and distribute firearms. They are accused of responsibility and negligence in the illicit trafficking of arms into Mexico.

Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Century, Colt's, Glock, are among the companies sued. Mexico alleges damage to its territory in terms of public health and safety costs incurred as a result of the companies' failure to exercise due care in their processes. It also alleges that the defendants have benefited economically from their negligence. An example of this is the increase in sales in border states.

On 22 November, the defendants moved to dismiss Mexico's lawsuit based on six main arguments. The most relevant are that Mexico does not have standing, that the causal link between the defendants' conduct and the alleged damages is too long and therefore attenuated, that the defendants have no duty to protect Mexico from crimes committed on its territory, and that Mexico cannot invoke national law to fill gaps in US law.

Much of the trial will be decided on who wins the argument of extraterritorial applicability of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. If found to apply, it excuses the defendant companies from liability for third party crimes. If it does not apply to crimes committed outside the US, Mexico would take an important step in the trial.

In addition to legal action in the US, diplomacy has proved to be a different means of pressuring the US. As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Mexico assumed the presidency in November. It quickly became clear that it would use its time at the helm of one of the most important bodies to push its claims on illicit arms trafficking.

"Private actors must contribute with decisive actions of self-regulation and monitoring of their supply chains in order to avoid the diversion and illicit trafficking of arms [and] ensure that those they manufacture [...] do not reach criminal hands," Ebrard said in his appearance before the Security Council.

It is well known that the competition for Morena's presidential succession has begun. Marcelo Ebrard and Claudia Sheinbaum (head of government of Mexico City) are competing for the lead.

While the head of government has been singled out for having initiated pre-campaign activities, the Mexican chancellor took the leading role in the quest for vaccines at the beginning of the year. He was even nominated for "person of the year" by the Arms Control Association in connection with the lawsuit brought by the SRE.

Ebrard has shown a talent for positioning himself as a protagonist of the just causes of the "4T". Moreover, he is AMLO's only successor in a previous government position (he succeeded AMLO as head of government of the CDMX from 2006 to 2012). As they say in the US: "It's not his first rodeo".

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