Central American politicians’ habitual tough talk on violent crime has paid few dividends in practice; it makes little impact on drug cartels, whose resources often far outweigh those of the local police or army. Attention will inevitably be focused on the US to provide more material and technical support to the security forces; drips of funding for Central America under the term of the Mérida Initiative agreed with Mexico are welcome, but likely to be insufficient in the grand scheme of things.