The Trump administration plans to send the military into Mexico to smash the drug cartels, as he promised he would during his campaign for the White House.
The report from NBC News, which cited “current and former” officials, said final details are yet to be worked out, and that special forces on the ground inside the narcotics kingdom would visit death from above upon the cartels with drones. Training for the mission has begun.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denied that U.S. forces would enter the country.
A move to fight the cartels inside Mexico would expand the administration’s war against cartels. The military has repeatedly destroyed what it claims were Venezuelan drug boats headed for the United States. A massive Navy flotilla is in the Caribbean, an apparent threat to the corrupt regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro.
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NBC’s revelations about the missions are hardly a surprise. On Day 1 of his administration, Trump declared the cartels as terrorist organizations that “have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”
In February, the State Department published a list of cartels so designated.
In August, The New York Times revealed, he ordered the military to plan for war against the cartels, news that surfaced a day after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan strongman Maduro.