“Calavera Oaxaqueña” by José Guadalupe Posada (1910)
According to a recent report from The New York Times, President Trump has authorized the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels. Trump established the legal groundwork for this directive shortly after assuming the presidency for a second term when he issued an order that designated certain drug cartels as global terrorists. The order specifically accused Latin American criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (“MS-13”) of threatening “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”
It is discouraging to see President Trump signal a willingness to forgo diplomacy in favor of a militarized approach that could violate the sovereignty of the largest U.S. trading partner. The United States must prioritize diplomacy in the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship rather than rush into a destabilizing military misadventure with its neighbor.
The United States is currently in a synthetic opioid crisis. A large amount of fentanyl enters the country through the southern border and kills tens of thousands of Americans per year. Competing voices have debated how to mitigate the devastating effect of synthetic opioids. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) recently categorized the drug war as a “counter-insurgency war” and subsequently called for the establishment of a “North American Security Initiative,” which builds on his 2024 expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that enables American intelligence to surveil cartel affiliates on domestic soil. The crux of Crenshaw’s argument is that Mexican drug cartels now resemble a “terrorist insurgency” and Congress should arm the Mexican military and, with Mexican approval, place U.S. forces alongside Mexican counterparts in Mexico.
Although Crenshaw claims that the current administration of Mexico is “a willing partner” in joint efforts to combat cartel activity, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum recently reiterated the clear limits to that cooperation. Sheinbaum clarified that collaboration between the United States and Mexico would continue but she said that “the United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military.”
Indeed, U.S. military boots on the ground, or even U.S. bombing operations in Mexico, would likely yield disastrous consequences. Sheinbaum’s current red line of not allowing U.S. troops to operate in Mexico puts the United States into a position where it would risk entering a fight that it cannot realistically win. The United States would likely be limited to targeted bombings, which in and of itself raises questions about violating a neighbor’s sovereignty. The recent misadventure in Yemen where the United States attempted to degrade the Houthi insurgency illustrated the constraints, and disproportionate cost, of relying solely on air superiority.
Furthermore, there are myriad examples from modern battlefields, such as Israel’s war in Gaza, that highlight the substantial risk of civilian casualties in bombing campaigns. With decades of both legal and illegal Mexican migration to the United States that has changed the demographic face of the American southwest, is it prudent to pursue a strategy that might engender domestic rage within the Mexican-American community? One need not look further than the recent unrest sparked by ICE deportations as protestors burned infrastructure and waived Mexican flags.
There also are the long-term strategic consequences to consider. Mexico has a longstanding skepticism of the United States, a sentiment shared across Latin America. U.S. programs such as the Cold War-era Operation Condor, where Latin American governments leveraged computerized database technology allegedly provided by the U.S. intelligence community, resulted in about 60,000 dead. Additional U.S.-led counterinsurgency initiatives could further damage the reputation of the United States across the region.
Finally, launching an unpopular U.S. military counterinsurgency effort against drug cartels could risk pushing Mexico into China’s orbit. Mexico has not yet signed up to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which is constructing global infrastructure in partner nations elsewhere in Latin America. China is also the main source of fentanyl precursors, so further Chinese economic cooperation could boost fentanyl production in Mexico. Diplomacy should be leveraged to deter conflict rather than willingly initiate military escalation.
Trump’s ambition for U.S. military action in Mexico is nothing new. However, U.S. intelligence is now reorienting itself to favor a more aggressive approach against drug cartels. Treating Latin American drug cartels as a terrorist insurgency that requires military intervention may well serve as the first step toward another forever war fought in the U.S. backyard. Cartels that traffic drugs into the United States is undeniably a problem. However, treating this problem like an insurgency and setting out to fight a counterinsurgency, the blueprint of the ill-fated U.S. occupations of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, will likely be a losing strategy in this hemisphere.
This first appeared on FPIF.
The post US Boots on the Ground in Mexico Would be a Disaster appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Torres.