Counternarcotics operations undermine national security
A State Department (DOS) report (the Report) underlines the need for immediately cleaning house. The March Report asserts that the Chinese Communist Party “does not, as a matter of government policy, encourage or facilitate illicit drug production or distribution.”
This contradicts President Donald Trump’s tariffs and reflects subversive personnel. Trump has imposed tariffs in response to China’s role with fentanyl smuggled into the United States.
After DOGE exposed USAID waste, fraud, and abuse—really subversion—Trump put it under DOS control. Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated 83 percent of USAID programs.
However, according to congressional testimony by former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, DOS already controlled USAID. The “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report” displays DOS subversion and indicates that DOS needs USAID-style DOGE treatment.
DOS’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) prepared the Report, which describes the international drug trade for 2024. Assistant Secretary for INL Todd Robinson left his post three days before Trump’s inauguration. DOS has yet to publicly replace him, and INL merits consideration for closure.
Robinson’s control of the Report is clear by the falseness in the sections on Colombia and Guatemala. Robinson had an anti-US agenda in both countries.
The Colombia section begins with “Colombia set records for cocaine seizures in 2023 and, according to Ministry of Defense figures, exceeded those statistics in 2024.” The real reason is increased cocaine production, higher than the increase in seizures, not counter-narcotics cooperation.
The Guatemala section begins with “Since the inauguration of President Bernardo Arévalo in January 2024, the Arevalo administration has overseen a threefold increase in narcotics seizures compared to 2023.” Robinson’s need to hide his anti-US criminality, including his involvement in the electoral fraud that made Arévalo president, explains this overt endorsement.
As ambassador to Guatemala (2014–2017), Robinson ruled the country with impunity, acting as a pro-consul. Special Presidential Envoy Ric Grenell told Robinson in a 2024 X post (now deleted): “You are obsessed with politics in [Guatemala]. Drugs and illegal immigration have exploded in America under your reign.”
The Report omitted that 9.5 metric tons of cocaine seized on December 7, 2024, in the Dominican Republic came from Guatemala. The head of Guatemala’s ports was simultaneously the head of counter narcotics, after Robinson had Arévalo merge the two functions. Suspiciously, there has been no news of an investigation regarding Guatemala or the 9.5 tons.
Robinson used the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2015 to jail 17 innocent people so Joe Biden’s client could get a medical contract. This created a criminal nexus among Biden, Robinson, and CICIG Commissioner Iván Velásquez.
The need to cover his tracks explains why Biden appointed Robinson as head of INL. Their collusion also makes it likely that they helped Velásquez become Colombia’s defense minister in 2022 under former communist guerrilla and now President Gustavo Petro.
DOS, in a congressional hearing on June 7, 2023, aligned with narcos and protected Petro from criminal allegations. Velásquez played his part and dismantled the US-created counternarcotics apparatus. Predictably, Colombian cocaine production exploded, and the county became part of the land route for narcotics to the United States.
The Report states Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras was sanctioned under the “Section 353 List of Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors.” Senator Mike Lee wrote to Blinken: “Without providing any evidence, [DOS] has waged incessant attacks against [Porras], a stalwart US ally in the war on drugs and human trafficking, as Representatives Buck, Crawford and Salazar duly noted in their letter to you.
The Report bragged about the extradition from Guatemala of 14 narco traffickers to the United States. It omitted that only the attorney general could request extradition and that the president has no authority over the attorney general.
In Colombia, Guatemala, and other places, INL has insisted on working with the police. This is despite having had success working with militaries, which have the capacity and discipline for counter-narcotics operations the police lack.
The Defense Department gave Guatemala’s army more than 40 CJ8 armored jeeps to patrol Guatemala’s borders with El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico. INL and the US embassy, however, discourage the use of the jeeps by withholding funding.
Robinson undermined Trump as ambassador to Guatemala in 2017, chargé d’affaires to Venezuela in 2018, and special advisor for Central America in 2018. At INL from 2021–2025, Robinson executed Biden’s agenda of flooding our country with illegal narcotics and migrants.
Local media aligned with Arévalo cited the Report as proof that DOS supports Arévalo and opposes Porras. This is despite her being essential to extraditions Rubio stated are “in our national interest.” Part of the Biden regime’s agenda, which so far continues under Trump, is to turn Guatemala into another Nicaragua.
The anti-US Biden agenda will continue until the Trump administration stops it. As the Report shows, this requires executive and congressional scrutiny and wholesale changes to DOS to stop its permanent bureaucrats’ subversion.
Steve Hecht is a businessman, writer, and film producer, born and raised in New York. He has lived and worked in Guatemala since 1972. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Master of Business Administration in Banking and Finance, both from Columbia University.
Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
