Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has said that the US is prepared to widen the so-called war on drugs into a Plan Colombia-style initiative for Mexico and Central America. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton also said the drug cartels in Mexico are coming to resemble an insurgency.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “These drug cartels are now showing more and more indices of insurgency. All of a sudden, car bombs show up, which weren’t there before. So it’s becoming — it’s looking more and more like Colombia looked twenty years ago, where the narcotraffickers control certain parts of the country. The newly inaugurated president of Costa Rica, President Chinchilla, said, 'We need help, and we need a much more vigorous US presence.' So we are working to try to enhance what we have in Central America.”

Mexican lawmakers immediately criticized Clinton’s remarks. Sen. Ricardo Monreal of Mexico’s Labor Party said, “If the United States thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to Colombia, they are mistaken.”