Mexico also began enacting extremely heavy handed tariffs against China and other Asian exporters like South Korea, India, and Vietnam in 2023 onwards [0][1][2][3] in order to protect their domestic manufacturing capacity against an export-driven supply shock, which hit Mexico really badly in the 2000s [4].

> Was going well (as per the paper) until US / China relations went in the toilet

Yep, but as long as Mexico continues to enact trade barriers to protect against an Asian export shock, the APIs needed for synthesis will remain difficult for organized crime to acquire.

Already, cartels have begun tariff arbitraging by targeting the CEE and the Balkans as a new base for synthetic opioid operations [5][6][7], especially because Romanian [8] and other CEE gangs had been collaborating with Mexican organized crime on financial and human trafficking crimes in Mexico for over a decade now.

[0] - https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/mexico-imposes-tempo...

[1] - https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/mexico-reinstates-ta...

[2] - https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/mexico-proposes-sign...

[3] - https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/mexico-formalizes-an...

[4] - http://international-economy.com/TIE_Sp03_Rosen.pdf

[5] - https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/larg...

[6] - https://balkaninsight.com/2024/07/24/fentanyl-central-europe...

[7] - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-foreign-policies-of-t...

[8] - https://www.occrp.org/en/project/how-a-crew-of-romanian-crim...

That absolutely played a part also.

The biggest takeaway that deserves stressing over and over again is that Things Take Time .. it generally takes 18 months and longer to substantially impact global flows.

The work has to be put in early, kept up in practice, and results are often credited to political actors down the road of time.

TTT - Piet Hein - https://www.circlepublications.net/grooks