Esquivel exposes the US government's double standards regarding cartels.

MEXICO CITY (apro).-The United States government delivered a report to the administration of then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador detailing the operations of criminal drug trafficking groups, and that document was then given to Marcelo Ebrard, then head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said J. Jesús Esquivel, Proceso correspondent in Washington.

During the presentation of his book, "Los cárteles gringos," published by Penguin Random House, the journalist detailed passages from the American drug trafficking operation.

The U.S. government, Esquivel said, uses double talk to avoid calling them cartels, branding them as criminal groups, thus avoiding contributing to a media crisis and, in foreign policy efforts, "placing" Mexico with the huge problem of drug trafficking and its leaders.

"On average, 150 people are dying every day from the fentanyl crisis," Esquivel said. He asserted that this figure reflects the lack of a "triumph" in drug policy in the United States.

For his part, journalist Julio "Astillero" Hernández asserted that the correspondent uses "documents to show a reality that exists," despite the rhetoric of Donald Trump's administration. "There's another side there," he said.

The book was presented at the Bella Época Cultural Center of the Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) and was attended by nearly 300 people.

A preview of the book was published in the June issue of Proceso, number 24.

In “The American Cartels: The Fentanyl Crisis in the United States and the DEA’s Failure to Combat It,” J. Jesús Esquivel, correspondent for Proceso magazine in Washington, DC, presents a journalistic investigation that dismantles the traditional narrative that blames Mexico alone for the drug trafficking problem.

Through interviews with DEA agents, such as John Callery, and the analysis of numerous court documents, Esquivel reveals the existence of U.S. criminal networks—gangs, motorcycle clubs like the Hell's Angels, and hierarchical structures operating as "franchises"—that control the distribution of drugs, especially fentanyl, in the United States.

The book highlights that these "gringo cartels" not only traffic substances, but also dominate routes, control territories, and launder money with the complicity of banks, challenging the official narrative that singles out Mexican cartels as the main culprits.

The central focus of the work is the fentanyl crisis, a cheap, lethal, and easy-to-produce synthetic opioid that has triggered an overdose epidemic in the United States, killing thousands each year.

Esquivel argues that this crisis cannot be explained solely by cross-border trafficking, as distribution and consumption are deeply rooted in American society.

The author points out that 95% of drug traffickers are U.S. citizens, predominantly white men, which contradicts racist stereotypes that associate drug trafficking exclusively with Mexico or Latin America.

Esquivel also addresses the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, which has historically taken a passive stance toward drug use and has constructed a victim narrative that blames countries like Mexico and Colombia.

Since the 1970s, according to the author, Washington has evaded its responsibility for the addiction crisis, preferring to point the finger at others while ignoring the criminal structures within its borders.

The book documents how the term "cartel" is deliberately avoided in official U.S. discourse to avoid alarming Congress and to ensure funding, thus perpetuating a strategy that diverts attention from Mexico and obscures the scale of domestic criminal networks.