Earlier this year, suspected Hispanic drug gang gunmen , fired on U. S. Border Patrol agents , in Texas, who fired up. Because it was originally used as a conducting location for cartel smuggling activities, this occurred on a strip of land in the middle of the Rio Grande, also known as” Cartel Island.” Texas authorities , took over the area as part of Gov. In November 2023, Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star officially recognized Texas as its own.
The event demonstrates why it’s time to begin treating Mexico as a hostile foreign power that poses a clear threat to the United States, not just because it has allowed the cartel to take control of sizable stretches of Mexican territory, invade the Mexican state at the highest levels, and carry out complex operations on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Trump may now launch military operations against these organizations inside Mexico, following the recently issued executive order to designate some of these cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Five years ago, the president asked his military advisers about the possibility of launching rockets into Mexico’s gang medicine labs, and he had already floated this idea. Trump’s experts at the time dismissed the idea out of hand, but his instincts were correct: If we want to manage our southern border and stop the flow of fatal, illegal medications into our country, we must take the criminal title significantly and engage in a cartel-wagon combat by bringing the battle to them.
It’s not an outrageous or reckless idea. In early 2023, Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz, both military combat veterans,  , introduced legislation , creating the Authorization for Use of Military Force ( AUMF) to target Mexican drug cartels responsible for the fentanyl crisis at America’s southern border. The bill never achieved any results, just as previous Republican initiatives that had designated cartels as terrorist organizations never did. However, under the Biden administration, it was irrelevant. Even the cartels that control the border were never something that Biden would never do.  ,
However, with Trump in office, there is a chance to solve our border issue by treating it like a national security issue. Waltz, a former Green Beret who deployed to Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa, has been tapped by the Trump White House to be his national security advisor. He appears to comprehend the nature of the threat south of the Rio Grande. Waltz said in a 2023 statement introducing the AUMF that” the situation at our southern border has become untenable for our law enforcement personnel. ” It’s time to go on offense”.
He’s right. If our Border Patrol agents are targeted by cartel gunmen from the south of the Rio Grande, we can’t secure the border. Just one week after Trump began his crackdown on illegal border crossings and gave the order for federal immigration to begin deporting and arresting criminal aliens across the country, gunfire was exchanged on the border. Since Trump’s election, border crossings have fallen, a blow to the cartels that profit from migrant trafficking.
In retaliation for Trump targeting a major source of their income, the Mexican cartels operating on the border , reportedly gave a “green light”  , to open fire on U. S. federal law enforcement, essentially declaring war on the United States. So be it. If they want war with the U. S., that’s what we should give them. That’s one of the reasons Trump designated them as terrorist organizations, to make it easier for the U. S. military to target them.
But because of , the Mexican government’s complicity in cartel activities, going to war against the cartels will mean acting unilaterally, without the permission or cooperation of Mexican officialdom. We shouldn’t let that deter us. The United States has the right and duty to secure our border as a sovereign nation. Because the Mexican state is incredibly corrupt and has been working with the cartels for years, it will require that the state, local police, and the Mexican military keep abreast of our operations against them.
And as I’ve said elsewhere elsewhere, those operations should include cross-border intrusions into Mexico, whether they are intended to defuse cartel leaders, establish a buffer zone to protect U.S. border communities from small arms fire, or disrupt and derail cartels ‘ drug and migrant trafficking operations across northern Mexico. Making war with those in charge of our southern border, which would mean bringing the conflict directly to the cartels, is the only way to restore it. Up to 40 % of Mexican territory is controlled by the cartels, according to Christopher Landau, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Mexico during his first term and has since been appointed as deputy secretary of state. And where the cartels don’t have direct control, they collaborate and collaborate with the Mexican government, which has effectively merged with the major cartels. It’s not too much to say that Mexico has become a narco-state.
It ought to have never occurred. The Biden administration’s open border policies, which have fueled the cartels to massively monetize illegal immigration and impose complete control over all border crossings, have been the predictable outcome of the four years that we are currently in. Every man, woman, and child who crosses the border , is being trafficked. No one crosses into the United States without paying, and this is often done in the form of remittances to the cartels after immigrants enter the country. What the cartels have created by extorting illegal immigrants and their families is a tax base inside the country.
The Mexican government, going back at least to the administration of Felipe Calderón from 2006 to 2012, is involved in all of this. Calderón’s own security chief, Genaro García Luna, whose position in the Calderón administration was roughly equivalent to the director of the FBI, is , facing life in a U. S. prison , after being convicted of taking huge payoffs from the Sinaloa Cartel.
Then there was the case of former Mexican defense secretary, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, who was detained by federal agents in Los Angeles on suspicion of money laundering and drug trafficking in the year 2020. The arrest drew loud protests from top officials in Mexico, and , the charges were quickly dropped , after Mexico threatened to expel the Drug Enforcement Administration’s regional director and all DEA agents from the country. ‘ Trump’s attorney general’s decision to drop the charges was reportedly made to maintain cooperation with Mexico on other issues.
Beyond these high-profile cases, there is strong evidence that Mexico’s last president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,  , took millions from drug traffickers , in exchange for tolerating the cartels ‘ operations. According to a report from The New York Times last year, American law enforcement officials spent years looking into claims that López Obrador was receiving money from the cartels.
And now, his protégé and successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has struck a defiant pose against Trump and his efforts to wrest control of the border from the cartels. Asked recently about Trump’s designation of cartels as terrorist organizations, Sheinbaum , said,” They are free to take action in their territory… What we will defend is our sovereignty and our independence”.
What this means is that Sheinbaum’s government won’t be a partner or an ally in the fight against the cartels. If that’s the case, then we should stop thinking of Mexico as a partner and an ally, recognize it for the hostile foreign power that it is, and proceed accordingly.  ,
