Trump echoes Mexican president, says lax US gun laws help arm drug cartels

Republican nominee said ‘No one wins in either country when …
illegal weapons and cash flow from the United States into Mexico’,
which could upset the NRA

Lois Beckett
Thursday 1 September 2016 18.23 BST

For years, Mexican politicians have said lax US gun laws help to arm the country’s drug cartels.

At a press conference with Donald Trump on Wednesday in Mexico City, President Enrique Peña Nieto said: “Every year, thousands of weapons and millions of US dollars in cash enter illegally into Mexico from the north, strengthening the cartels and other criminal organizations that create violence in Mexico.”

The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of Trump’s key conservative backers, has long rejected such claims, arguing that guns sold by American dealers and smuggled across the border are not a major driver of crime in Mexico.

On Wednesday, however, in a largely conciliatory speech in Mexico City that preceded a more aggressive address on immigration at home in Arizona, Trump did not question Peña Nieto’s comment about guns. Instead, the Republican presidential candidate echoed the Mexican president’s longtime talking points.

“No one wins in either country when human smugglers and drug traffickers prey on innocent people, when cartels commit acts of violence, when illegal weapons and cash flow from the United States into Mexico,” Trump said.

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