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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
Donald Trump has repeatedly announced he is preparing a war against drug cartels, and James Bosworth, a global fellow at the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program, argues that Trump’s threats should be taken seriously.
There is in any case a larger context to Donald Trump’s “war on drugs” promises: he has after all vowed to employ the military for mass deportations (of illegal migrants) and to do so, he plans to declare “national emergency” – the plan does not rule out deporting whole families altogether. Several immigration “hard-liners” have been tapped by Trump to serve in his future administration (he will take the oath in January 2025). Such measures would be a great shift for the US military, normally not involved with domestic law enforcement matters. It has been tried before, though: the so-called Operation Wetback, under then President Eisenhower, in 1954, deported around 1 million Mexicans and even some US Americans of Mexican descent.
This might not be just about providing a very harsh answer to illegal migration and border problems (such as the Fentanyl crisis). Trump has at times even promised that thousands of American troops from overseas would be moved to the border. Think about it: mobilizing the military domestically and declaring a “national emergency” is a great way to increase one’s own power. And, as I wrote before, Trump’s war with part of the so-called “Deep State” is (to a large extent) all about that. It is about “taming” the intelligence services, expanding the Executive (as outlined in Project 2025) and boosting presidential powers.
Back to the border issues, in September 2023, Foreign Policy published a piece by Cato Institute’s researchers Justin Logan and Daniel Raisbeck about the (still ongoing) Fentanyl crisis. US Americans have long been facing an opioid crisis and a large share of the drug’s supply comes from Mexico. The issue fuels political tensions: for instance, American authorities have been vocally accusing Chinese companies of supplying Mexican cartels with the ingredients needed to manufacture fentanyl. In May 2023, Washington sanctioned 17 individuals and entities in China and Mexico over the issue. Amid American-Mexican tensions, increasingly heavy rhetoric against the Mexican cartels involved in this illegal trade has often included calls for “military solutions.”
Already in May 2024, Trump announced his plans to send “kill teams” to Mexico to “take out” cartel leaders. He is no lone voice on that, though. In August 2023, during the Republican Party presidential debate (before Donald Trump was made the party’s nominee), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to send US Special Forces into neighboring Mexico to combat drug cartels if elected president. Bryan Griffin, his spokesperson, elaborated the promise thusly: “Ron DeSantis will declare the cartels to be narco-terrorists, and change the rules of engagement on the border.
The full force of the federal government will be utilized to ensure that illegal drug flow is stopped, and he will bring to bear every tool he has to this end.” DeSantis did not make it to become his party’s nominee, but his statements back then go to show that this kind of rhetoric (which fails to take into consideration Mexico’s sovereignty) goes beyond Trump, and, in fact, Mexico is (no surprise here) a big part of the US debate on foreign policy.
Newly-sworn Mexican President Claudio Sheinbaum appears to have taken a more aggressive approach domestically towards Mexican cartels, employing Mexico’s military to combat them. However, thus far she has refused US security assistance and has even limited cooperation and intelligence-sharing since she took office in October. Putting it mildly, bilateral relations are not good right now – again, no surprise here.
Such typical American aggressiveness can only further alienate the neighboring country and push it away towards Beijing, for instance: Chinese pragmatic diplomacy after all contrasts quite dramatically to American belligerency. Mexican civilian authorities are not the only actors who could object to any such US incursion on their territory: we are talking about a heavily militarized nation, and this includes sophisticated and tremendously wealthy and heavily armed paramilitary groups such as the drug cartels themselves.
Any such cross-border militarization (with potential for some degree of armed confrontation) could have escalating consequences and unpredictable repercussions in terms of diplomatic and economic impacts, gang violence, and domestic and cross-border inter-ethnic tensions: the two countries not only share a 2,000-mile border but are also very much integrated, with Mexican-Americans being 11.2% of the US population in 2022. In Texas, 31.6% of the local population has Mexican ancestry
Besides the military and diplomatic angles (taken together with mass deportation plans impacting millions of people which would cost billions of dollars), there is a potential for economic disaster, as the two countries complement each other in this realm as well: for one thing, in 2021 Mexico was the US second largest trading partner, with a total of $725.7 billion goods and services trade. By July 2023, Mexico had already surpassed China, becoming the top trading partner.
In addition to that, Trump’s plans are sure to trigger a legal battle at home, lawsuits from state governors and so on. It also opens the room for some level of armed conflict with different actors with a neighboring country. The aforementioned James Bosworth warns that the potential for a “Blackhawk Down scenario” in which US troops “end up pinned down in a violent standoff with criminal forces or even Mexican troops defending the country’s sovereignty from US intervention—is real”, for a “simple’ operation” could “rapidly escalate into something more complex and deadly.”
He adds that Washington should also consider “potential responses by the cartels”, because “some Mexican criminal groups may decide to fight back and even escalate violence by targeting US interests, businesses and citizens”. Moreover, according to Bosworth, they can do “plenty of damage to US forces operating in Mexico, and they have the capabilities, weapons and personnel to take the fight into US territory in a way that al-Qaida and the Islamic State could only dream of.”
As is the case with so many belligerent US policies and plans, the risk lies in the unpredictability of escalation scenarios. One may only wonder whether such risks will be worth it, even from Trump’s perspective.
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i destroyed yuris back infrastructure. 😃😃😃😃
who’s really writing this idiocy? this is as dumb as saying 9/11 was an inside job.
and that just goes to show exactly how imbecilic statements some americans make or are you paid to express these stupid statements!
he’s a troll he’s trying to be clever. imo .
i hope he does, not only that would wreck american finance based economy, but, make the world witness the nature of american bullying/hubristic exceptionalism, accelerating the swift away from the dollar/bonds, and from the west. the world won’t be able to get rid of the west’ empire without suffering, palestine is proof of that.
yes pharoah you would wish that .obviously. for your reasons and motives .
no, it’s as dumb as the us attacking isis in iraq, the cartels are the business partners of the cia drug dealing empire… you think they ever stopped after the boxer rebellion? 911 was an israeli job dip shits…
considering the cia and fbi along with the american military are the main constituents in the supply of the world drug industry of course being assisted by the medical profession making a subtle side profit prescribing fentanyl what chance has the american nation have when profits by any means and greed at the cost of life, zionism has a lot to answer for when it comes to vermin, filth, the lack of humanity!
wakey wakey snakey england set up global drug trafficking as a legitimate government military operation with their opium wars invading china . cocaine is the cash cow of the catholic south america’s church and crown .
roosavelt’s grandpa was an opium dealer, but you’d know that if you knew any of your know it all, knowing nothing much but the obvious, or the insane…
continued :- slugs a nation destroyed by cowardly men and dirty targers who think butchering children a right, they should be sterilised for the benefit or rights of any possible child!
wouldn’t that please you .in your dreams .
time for usa to start kicking azz again!!!
heheheh
mexico destroyed my anaz.
it would be a first for any protestant nation to invade a catholic. imo .but trumps wife ivanna was catholic, and melania is catholic so his children i presume are catholic .course since he isn’t catholic then the vatican s position is that the weddings not legitimate and bofcare the children. unless certain conditions are met .stipulated by the vatican..etc etc
thank you very much for replying to my completely pointless comments! please keep going… heheheh
finish the border wall instead. much cheaper, just as effective. if mexico makes noise about deportations and refuses to admit them, then use parachutes. eventually the message will get through, especially if you air drop some of those immigration attorneys also. mexico needs to pull their socks up and stop living off the us.
it’ needs ,the whole of south america stolen by the spanish needs to returned to the native owners and the billions spain extracted returned .imo .
the reconquista is progressing nicely, with 40 million illegals in the us, mainly wetbacks and beaners. the united snakes should just cede texas, arizona, new mexico and california back to the mexicans, from whom they stole it in the first place. then the beaners should give it back to the redskins they stole it off. problem solved. if chumpo is worried about fentanyl he should just hang the (((sackler))) family.
mexican soverignity what a load .as if they haven’t been subversively invading north america for decades now ,tunnelling for miles under the border and smuggling contraband in with intention of pulling hundreds of millions of us dollars out of circulation so to exacerbate inflation and devaluation of the dollar..mexico the former german colony from its holy roman empire days .
i invaded yuris back infrastructure. 😃😃😃😃
nah the joint forces of the cartels would squash the c*unts and open the border to unlimited importation of meth, of coke, of grass! the c*unts society would disintegrate in no time to bsngladeshi level!
notice that almost no one including all politicians ever talk about the fact that laundering cartel drug money is a huge part of american banks’ income.
it also funds a lot of the more smelly little cia wars, terror campaigns, election rigging and general mayhem that even they daren’t put before a none too fastidious congress.
trump pardoned drug dealers before he left office to appease black people, now he wants china to execute drug dealers and stop th mexican drug cartels, we can’t even get affordable health care leave the drugs alone trump
them yankees like them drugs too much. trump gonna bring mayhem to the us and world again. yankees always got to take some kind of medication to relieve whatever symptoms they created for themselves such as gorging on big fat burgers and sodas making themselves fat. they get addicted to painkillers and get diabetes then need some drug to make themselves feel better as they continue to eat sugar and stuff their faces and they then tell of their situation on the websites expecting some sympathy.
america has the right and the authority of it’ people to wipe out their criminal enemies in mexico using any force necessary. mexico should be annexed by america if this criminal activity continues
in fact usa should return mexican territories back to mexico such as texas, california and new mexico so that the drugs problem become mexican problem. that is an easy solution for the usa and those states and mexico will be happy to have their lands back that was stolen by the usa in 1846
mexico should also return it’s territory back to the aztecs and tarahumara who should return it to any cave dwellers who may exist
come and bite it jewmerican filth. la along with numerous other places have got some lead for you to chew. can’t wait to hang the semperfags by the balls and feed the rest alive to huge guard dogs. it’s just the beginning for your rat empire. the uprisings that will follow will finish you once and for all. trump said he will be the last president. he’ll get that indeed.
round up all addicts and put them in camps until they are clean. remove the demand and the supply will dry up. cheaper than a war with mexico cartels and less human carnage.
this is an interesting story because the little hat people are the backers of the orange man but also are in charge of the mexican government. it becomes time people see through all this nonsense🙈
american defeats in iraq and in afghanistan would appear like an holyday if this scenario occurs… btw russia would have a way to revenge for us meddling in ukraine. after all, supplying weapons to an invaded country was legitimized. iran scenario would be better of course. vietnam 2.0 to damn yankees! come on! invade!
latinos need smart missiles, killler drones, rpgs to wipe out anglo-zionist filth and kick the survivors all the way to madagascar. hopefully there is enough in the world to supply them with. just give weapons to the millions of migrants waiting in latin america and bon voyage up north hunting down gringo jew filth.
in 1914 a mexican bandit called pancho villa shot up a couple of towns on the texas border. the united snakes sent pershing and 150,000 troops to invade mexico. they wandered aimlessly around the country for a while, annoying all the locals but otherwise achieving very little. it looks like history is about to repeat itself. these cartels are some pretty mean hombres. they routinely take on the mexican army, which often comes off second best.
the drug wars in mexico have killed more than 100.000 people. the cartels have beheaded far more people than isis ever has. mexico is very corrupt and the cartels even have some popular support within the country. cartel leaders are often seen as pablo escobar robin hood type figures, whose notoriety inspires popular folk ballads. the cartels may not be all that impressed by the gringo gender neutral diverse army. chumpo may be biting off more than he can chew.
do you feel lucky, gringo?
don’t worry about mexicans slaughtering trump’s zionazi stormtroopers. los angeles is loaded and waiting for the anglo-zionist attack. that’s where ,besides dozens of other locations, the enemy invaders will get much uglier than the blackhawk down semperfags disaster. the filth will be hanging by the balls on the trees ,the rest will be fed alive to animals.
trump said he will be the last president. that he will get. along with a number of cesseded territories leaving rump jewmerica in civil war ruins. mexicans will shred jewmerican filth like a piñata, especially if heavy weapons supplies arrive to mexico who knows from where. smart missiles, killer drones, antiarmor weapons from russia and china ? blast the gringo jew filth everywhere.