https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/latest-crime-statistics-released

As we remember, the most violent crime, as in murder, didn't explode in Mexico until George W. made the agreement with Felipe Calderón.
After that it was "every man for himself." Boom.

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Aiding Insecurity: Four Years of Mexico's Drug War
Truthout, July 16, 2011 | Article

By Tom Barry

Mexico's drug-trafficking organizations constitute a threat to regional security and to US national security, says the US government. Yet the region is becoming less secure and less safe as the result of the security emphasis of US counternarcotics initiatives.

The Merida Initiative, signed by President George W. Bush and Felipe Calderon in October 2007, officially launched new US efforts to improve "regional security" through counternarcotics aid programs in Mexico, and, to a lesser degree, in Central America and the Caribbean. [1]

Administered by the State Department, since 2008, the Merida Initiative has allocated US military and criminal-justice assistance to take out the drug- trafficking organizations (DTOs) in the region.

Paralleling this State Department program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have launched their own security initiatives along the southwestern border. These border security programs - including the Secure Border Initiative, Southwest Border Initiative, Project Gunrunner and the Alliance to Combat Transnational Crime - complement regional security initiatives by targeting drug flows and DTO smuggling operations at the border.

More:
https://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/aiding_insecurity_four_years_mexicos_drug_war

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AUGUST 22, 2017
The U.S. is Fanning the Flames of Violence in Mexico
by EDWARD HUNT

Over the past several months, drug-related violence in Mexico has been soaring, accelerating an already alarming trend of rising drug-related deaths and contributing to what one former U.S. official has called “a decade-long bloodbath.”

To some extent, the latest spike in violence is nothing new for Mexico. For more than a decade, Mexico has experienced waves of drug-related violence as the Mexican government has waged an internal drug war against the country’s drug cartels. “Successive Mexican presidents have implemented policies aimed at disrupting these drug-trafficking organizations, but the result has been a decade-long bloodbath that has cost more than 100,000 deaths to the ensuing violence,” former State Department official Roger Noriega said earlier this year.

At the same time, the spike in violence shows that Mexico’s struggles are far from over. Although a steady decline in violence from 2012 to 2014 raised hopes that the situation was improving, the trend reversed in 2014 and has only worsened since then. “Mexico’s bloody drug war is killing more people than ever,” the Los Angeles Times reported in July.

Observers cite numerous reasons for the increase in violence. They blame everything from the fracturing of drug cartels to the inability of local police forces to deal with the situation.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/22/the-u-s-is-fanning-the-flames-of-violence-in-mexico/

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It's really time Peña Nieto moved on, isn't it? There is nothing whatsoever he has done which has improved life for any ordinary people in Mexico. Nothing.

They need an intelligent, principled President, just as we do here.

Thank you, sandensea.

Shocking murder number for the US neighbor, which was thrown an anchor rather than a lifeline long ago, under the pretense of "helping."