In popular culture, media and political discourse coming from the White House Mexico has come to represent the embodiment of US racial, cultural and economic anxieties. Trump has given a new face and voice to this historic ignorance by implicitly singling out its southern neighbours as the cause and source of the nations ills. What is often left out of political conversations on the increasing instability and violence of Mexico is the role of the US in perpetuating the war on drugs through its world leading consumption of illicit substances and its promotion of the devastating free trade deal know as NAFTA. This has culminated in a stagnant Mexican economy, the displacement of 2 million Mexican agricultural workers, and waves of migrants trying to find low wage work north of the border.

We spoke to Natalia Pujalte, formally of the Mexican foreign ministry and the European Council about Mexican-US relations. We discussed the nexus between the war on drugs, violence and immigration and the impact this on-going conflict has had on internal politics and human rights of Mexico.