Obama Lands in Mexico to Press Drug War

President Obama began his first official Latin American tour with a visit to Mexico City today, the New York Times reports. Obama landed this afternoon for the first presidential visit to Mexico’s capital since the Clinton administration. He’ll meet with Felipe Calderón to discuss the economy, trade disputes, and above all the ongoing drug war plaguing the country.

Obama is expected to use the occasion to acknowledge that America’s demand for illicit drugs is fueling the violence, a move that should please Mexico. “For the last 30 years the United States has come down with the big sticks of eradication and helicopters,” said a Council on Foreign Relations member, “and the elephant in the room of our own consumption, and the tough proliferation of arms, were just never addressed.” (More Barack Obama stories.)