The Clinton Administration's decision last week to certify Mexico's war on drugs made great political theater. Behind the pontificating on both sides, the hard fact is that neither Mexico nor the U.S. can afford more than a cosmetic approach to fighting drug trafficking. PNS associate editor Andrew Reding directs the North America Project of the World Policy Institute at The New School for Social Research, where he is also Senior Fellow for Hemispheric Affairs.

Washington's decision to certify that the Mexican government is cooperating fully in the war on drugs flies in the face of one essential fact: Mexico has become so dependent on the hard currency it receives from drug trafficking that any significant crackdown on its narcotics cartels would jeopardize economic recovery. And any further deterioration of Mexico's economy would hurt NAFTA, destabilize Mexican politics, and increase illegal immigration.

Faced with this unpleasant reality, truth is an easy casualty.

Mexican drug cartels grossed around $30 billion in 1994, the last year for which the Mexican Attorney General's office released figures. Even if that sum is exaggerated by a factor of two, it vastly outstrips earnings from the country's largest legal export -- oil -- which brought in $7 billion during the same period. And that's just the beginning. The billions of dollars flowing into Mexico don't just stand still. They're recycled into "legitimate" businesses, such as tourism and banking. By investing in hotels, restaurants, change houses and banks, Mexico's kingpins are able to both launder their profits and masquerade as respectable entrepreneurs.

The net effect of ignoring the true dimensions of drug trafficking is that we see only a virtual economy, bearing little resemblance to the real thing. Without including Mexico's largest source of foreign exchange, and its penetration of tourism -- the country's second most important source of "legitimate" foreign exchange -- and banking, the economic statistics bandied about by Mexico City, Washington, and international lending institutions are polite fictions. Consider what the truth would do to trade statistics. With Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot gloating over the U.S.'s $15 billion trade deficit with Mexico last year, think what a field day they would have were that figure to incorporate Mexico's narcotics earnings, which are twice as high.

Similarly, the Forbes list of the wealthiest individuals in the world, while including several prominent Mexican billionaires, excludes drug kingpins whose estimated fortunes are several times greater. When you consider the power of wealth even in as prosperous a country as the United States -- whether of Steve Forbes, Ross Perot, or even O.J. Simpson -- think of the impact of comparable fortunes in a mostly poor country with an economy three percent the size of our own, and you'll have a reasonable idea of the influence of Mexican kingpins. With politicians, judges, generals, and police commanders on their payrolls, it is little wonder they are able to achieve efficiencies as high as 90 percent in delivering narcotics to the streets of Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago.

Key Mexican officials often receive two salaries: one from the federal or state treasury; the other from their "business associates." They can't obey two masters. With drug kingpins able to outbid government salaries handsomely, it is no mystery why they have more authority in much of northern Mexico than does the President of the Republic.

But that still does not fully explain why President Zedillo has acted so timidly towards his country's cartels. While pledging to end impunity, Zedillo has only arrested two traffickers. The first, Hector Luis Palma, literally fell into his hands when the kingpin's corporate jet crashed outside Guadalajara. The second, Juan Garcia Abrego, made the mistake of linking himself too closely to associates of disgraced former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. That made him expendable. Stripped of his political protection, his cartel already on the skids, Garcia Abrego was offered up like a ritual sacrifice in anticipation of the upcoming U.S. certification. Meanwhile, other kingpins like the Arellano Felix brothers, accused of murdering Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas of Guadalajara, continue to appear in public in Tijuana without fear of arrest.

Though there are multiple reasons for such official tolerance of lawlessness, one is no doubt an understanding of Mexico's real macroeconomics. No one doubts that the loss of Mexico's petroleum revenues would cripple its economy; yet even a 50 percent dent in its narcotics revenues would be just as devastating. The truth is that in Mexico's present financial straits, neither Mexico City nor Washington can afford more than a cosmetic approach to fighting drug trafficking. For the time being, all we can look forward to are more exercises in virtual reality, encompassing ever-more-fictional economic statistics and elaborately choreographed "wars" on drugs on both sides of the border.