Test test test test test test test test test test test test. O. To address problems as they arise and to report to the two president s. Essential is a green bilateral strategy and action agenda and then setting up the concrete working arrangements that are going to allow us to carry out Law Enforcement and capacity building. If we can do that, we can generate good confidence and good results working together between mexico and the United States. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, ambassador wayne. Let me start with a round of questions and ill turn to senator feinstein. Let me just ask you about the last comments you made, ambassador wayne about cabinet level individual. Are you talking about a president ial envoy of some kind that would be focused on mexico and Central America in this region or did i misunderstand you . I know its similar to the idea you put forward. I was thinking mainly in the u. S. mexico context that you need a senior enough level group to get the attention of all the various agencies and both government that is work on this to have the direct ties to the president and then to start a green action agenda and making sure it happens. That could also be part of a broader regional effort because, as has been so clearly laid out in this hearing in this discussion, the connections to Central America, to colombia, to the other countries are there and theyre active and we need to address them. A multiagency ability to coordinate, to act together, not only internally but with our partner countries. I note with some display that we have not had an ambassador to mexico for a couple of years now, which is shocking to me. I know the embassy in mexico city is one of the largest in the world. Given the significance of the issues that were talking about here, much of which would be handled within the context of the embassy and our ambassador there. My hope is that Foreign Relations committee, im not sure where the nominee for the next ambassador is. I hope it gets processed through the Foreign Relations committee so we can rectify that omission. Mr. Nor yageg a let me ask y. When i look at the amount of money that we have dedicate today Central America and to mexico and the mer at that initiative. It seems pretty meager by comparison. Now, im the last person to suggest its only a question of more money. We obviously need a plan. We need accountability, we need metrics to measure the efficacy of it. It strikes me that we have we have not responded in the sort of emphatic and significant way to the challenges we face in Central America and mexico like we did on planned colombia. Is that fair . I believe that there is a need for a comprehensive strategy approach. We tend to deal with the countries. First off, we break off the northern triangle, the source of immigration that we need to deal with in this sort of an economic area, as we did ten years ago when we passed the Free Trade Agreement with Central America. But we need to engage the individual governments as well. In certain cases we dont have leadership that we have had confidence in or even good relationships with. The difference with the president s of colombia, and santos for a good while. But we have a strategy essentially that the Interamerican Development bank developed for the Economic Development of Central America that i think is a fundamentally sound approach. That we also need to have the overlay of Security Assistance and we have very problematical relationships with guatemala and honduras and nicaragua where that doesnt come into play. We put substantial amount of money, 2. 3 billion since the initiative about eight or nine years ago. Part of that is, what are the partners willing to accept in terms of the system. With a lot of what we put into planned colombia, that 10 billion number was assistance for the mexicans up to now would be less inclined to take. We certainly expect the idea of dealing with these countries as a unit with Central America and with mexico as a partner, which is willing to put in resources as well. And that is, i think, a wise approach. We have to address that problem in terms of illegal immigration as well as International Narcotics problem. The problem we have weak states that are literally outgunned. Unless we have an approach, the security issues, the less we deal with the nar coe state and venezuela for example. We need the kind of traction we need. Thank you senator feinstein. Im really depressed by this. Ive been to colombia, ive seen the 10 billion injection. Ive seen some good government. I was there when i was a mayor. I was there later. I see venezuela crumble. I dont know whether its drugs or corrupt leadership. But its got to be one of the two of them because i thought, if any country would make it, it would be colombia. Now venezuela is the next thing to a nar coe state next dooco s. More and more as i watch these things, i tend to blame them on leaders. Am i wrong . I dont think youre wrong, senator feinstein. Its very troubling that we had a partner in colombia. Juan Manuel Santos who made an earnest effort to make peace with the narco guerillas. A lot of people warned him this was a mistake. You cant reach a political agreement with a criminal organization. All along the way and during the course of those negotiations, they made unilateral concessions to the guerillas. Starting with the ending of aerial spraying, fumigation of illicit crops. I have a friend in the state department who said santos government sort of went along with the u. N. Criticizing the use of fumigation because he wanted to hand the guerillas essentially what something they were insisting upon which is no more aerial fumigation. We also pulled back in terms of Security Operations in the guerilla areas and in the territory where they moved. Produced and then transited the illicit crops. We also gave up a lot on extra digs of narco kingpins. This is a problem in colombia today. I believe he made a serious mistake. But we were with him as a partner every step of the way because we supported the idea of a peace process. I think we should have been more arbiter harder nosed. More of an umpire and less of a cheerleader in that process. One final comment. We will not get any traction with colombia if we dont deal with the venezuela problem. Much of the farc which was supposed to be demobilized relocated into venezuela. They operate along with other guerilla organizations that have 40 camps deep into venezuelan territory. Theyre Trafficking Cocaine and theyre a threat to colombias security. They operate with absolute impunity in point of fact with partnership with the venezuelan regi regime. This administration has dug in hard on venezuela which seems to have run out of ideas and energy. We cannot give this up. Let me ask you. We spent 10 billion there. How can it end this way . I was there when everything was moving up and now it seems to be just the leaders that are corrupted and i guess corrupted by money. The state falls or it goes into a narco state, which is what i guess venezuela is doing now. Id like both ambassador wayne sorry by calling you by your first name. I did that before you had gray hair. I figure its okay. I think your hypothesis bears merit here. I dont think its one or the other. Corruption or leadership. I think its a combination of both. I agree with rogers point ab t about some of the decisions that president santos made in order to get the peace agreement. He was also very much committed to the notion that if he could solve the security problem, this is his prelttation. If he could solve the security problem with respect to the farc, he would gain traction to deal better with the narcotics problem. That didnt work out exactly the way that he thought. But he didnt stay in office long enough to even swrhave a chance to implement his ideas. As this hearing has said time and time again, this is not a shortterm problem. This is a longterm problem. The basic precepts of planned colombia, i think, still stand merit today and where it failed in the longterm is that the agreement to do alternative forms of economic activity, agriculture, alternative development more generally never ever were implemented in a serious enough way in an area of the country that has been distant from the capital and distant from the elite in the country from time and memorial. So its also in my view leadership and a conscious continuous implementation effort to deal with these problems altogether. Law enforcement alone is essential. But Law Enforcement is not in and of itself sufficient to deal with this problem. There has to be a broader overall effort. Youve talked today about the organization of the u. S. Government and that whether or not its a whole of government effort. It has almost never been a whole of government effort. The only institution in the government whose entire mission is drugs is dea. Even in the state department for the money that has flowed through to inl in terms of that, it is still not the central issue within the state department. Im not saying it should be. But lets be candid here. Unless the people who are implementing understand that this is a critical issue to the leadership going to your point, senator feinstein about leaders. Its not going to be the same kind of priority issue and people are not going to move out of the way in order to get things done in that particular area. Thank you. Thank you. Let me hear from mr. Wayne. Certainly. I think what were seeing is a combination of political will and Institutional Capacity that makes a difference. If you have a longterm strategy and a longterm commitment from partners like the United States, you can help build that Solid Foundation of strong institutions that will allow you to go through the ups and downs of elections and changes of government. Youre seeing that in colombia with the new president drawing on the institutions that were there and help strengthened with our assistance as well as their own internal work. But it really does need to be in both all countries, that whole of government approach that rand was talking about and a longterm strategy. If you look at Central America, you can see the ups and downs even of our commitment to that region which is has a lot of effects, especially in a place with weak institutions as we know the Northern Tier has. Thank you. Thank you. Ive been advised we have a little bit of a reprieve so were not we dont turn into pumpkins at 4 00. So with that, ill turn it to senator purdue for any questions he might have. Thank you to the witnesses and for all your experience in this area. Ambassador noriega, in mexico, we ask our fire witness, the secretary of state about the cartel situation in prior witness, the secretary of state about the cartel situation in mexico. In your view, how will the merit a initiative and other counter narcotics efforts with mexico be impacted by the change in this administration and more importantly to that, the second part of the question is, how should we approach the cartel impact and influence in Central America and in mexico . Well, senator, its a pop list, comes from the left in his country. But i will say since he became president , hes sought to sought positive constructive relationships with the United States. So it remains i think that that hes prepared to engage in a serious way. Up to now, i think, because of some bureaucratic challenges and changes in leadership and yes, some corruption that he found in some of the agencies affected, theyve kind of dropped the ball on some of the antidrug efforts and certainly on the measurements in terms of seizures and that sort of thing. The statistics i mentioned. Its absolutely unsustainable. If mexico loses ground to these extraordinarily powerful criminal entities, theyre going to those entities will continue to have their way and it will get worse anywhere in mexican territory. And theyre becoming more sophisticated. You have mexican cartels now moving into colombia and taking up rolling up even more of the cocaine production chain. So that they can get even greater profits. Theyre not going away. Theyve talked about amnesty for these folks and talked about legalizing crops as a means in reducing violence in the number of deaths. Thats clearly a priority of the mexican people as well. Its a mistaken approach. I think we need to engage him in a serious way and hold him accountable because in certain respects, thats even more important than the immigration challenge that were facing. Are you hopeful that his move with the National Guard to help combat crime, has that had any impact so far or do you anticipate it might . Ambassador wayne may have more information on this, but frank frankly, the National Guard up until recently was a figment of his imagine nation. He had a sixmonth transition, he talked about these sorts of things and wasnt able to execute them until he became president. I would be surprised if much of this Organization Even exists. Its certainly a good thing that they commit to put resources and hell have to do that in certain ways. It remains to be seen ambassador wayne, would you like to comment on that . Thank you very much. A couple of things. One in my long written testimony, i have section on the mer at that issue and recommended areas for cooperation to take this foortd. Id be happy to talk about them separately in more detail. The National Guard, theyre still building that. What theyve taken is the federal police, the police from the army and the police from the navy is the corps. They need to hire, train the rest of that group to get up to 140,000. Theres a corps that have experience. They dont have that much experience working together. So theres a lot of work to do. Theyve laid out a 34r57b plan deploy this. Theres about 150 districts. Theyre going to send some of them everywhere. This is going to be something in progress. Its going to take work. Its something where the United States can be supportive. If theyre open to that, theyre going to learn to need to be this combined Political Police group and to work with prosecutors and to work with local officials and we can offer them Technical Training and assistance to do that. It is on institution in creation right now. Theres no doubt about that. Its also true that the new government was really preoccupied with learning how to govern and to initiate all of its initial reforms. Just as weve seen in migration, theyve been learning along the way. Theyre making more serious commitments there. Now is the time to engage them and move forward in this Public Security cross border counter narcotics area to start getting serious about a concrete action agenda that we can both undertake. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator whitehouse. Thank you. There is a part of the International Criminal economy that we can do something about. One of the things people have observed over and over again is that whether youre a narco criminal, whether youre a clepto criminal, whatever your criminal activity is, once you have made your pile, you seek rule of law protections. You steal your money in the criminal clepto krat i can parts of the world, but when youre got your pile, you want to bring it to rule of law country. So that you can protect your illgotten gains. Weve seen that in the panama papers. Weve seen that in the paradise papers. Our treasury and other officials are boiling hot about this concern and theres widespread irritation about this through the Law Enforcement community because the United States, as a matter of policy, aid and abets those criminals in hiding and laundering their illgotten gains. We do so by allowing Shell Corporations to persist. Without disclosing who the real owner is. I think each of the organizations that you are affiliated with has pushed into that a little bit and tried to be helpful. I appreciate very much that our banking community, our Law Enforcement community and the department of treasury are all very foreign leaning on this subject. We still need to make more progress. If we could take away sanctuary in the United States for assets of the corrupt officials and the narcos themselves, would that not make some difference in this fight . Wouldnt put an end to it. I know its a piece of the puzzle. But isnt this something that we should do a better job of . Sir, we have tried that to some extent. Youre right in that regard. The Shell Corporations is not something weve tried to do. The Previous Administration did allow the Treasury Department to sanction drug traffickers and Drug Trafficking organizations to the extent that they could identify where their money is. I think the notion of banking transparency with respect to that or with respect to corporations. I dont know the extent to which we can administer or i should say create that program which would have an extra territorial aspect to it. The United States is becoming the repository for enormous amount of his money in states that are subject to our laws. And that certainly would help. I was thinking more about the caymans and the other no, no. The u. S. Being a shelter. Mr. Noriega. The Venezuelan Regime limited ab