President Donald Trump said he is open to expanding his campaign of military strikes against Latin American drug cartels to include targets inside Mexico, comments that immediately raised concerns about the potential for a major cross-border escalation. He made the remarks Monday at the White House, according to Reuters and NBC.
Trump said he had spoken with Mexican officials about the idea and suggested the United States already has identified multiple targets. “Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. We know every route. We know the addresses of every drug lord.”
Trump did not outline a timeline or describe how such strikes would be carried out. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected any suggestion of US attacks on Mexican soil, calling such actions unacceptable.
Analysts warn that Trump’s posture may disregard diplomatic norms. Jeff Garmany, an associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Melbourne, told Al Jazeera that both domestic and international legal barriers exist, but they might not restrain the administration. “Nothing about Trump’s second presidency suggests he would adhere to these laws and protocols,” he said. “I’d be surprised if he would wait for President Sheinbaum’s sign-off if he really wants to carry out strikes in Mexico.”
On Monday, Trump hinted at the existence of a list of potential sites, saying the United States knows “their front door” and “everything about every one of them.”
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He described the surge in drug-related deaths as “like a war,” citing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl as primary drivers of fatalities in the United States.
Garmany argued that direct US strikes would have little impact on Mexico’s powerful cartels, which remain deeply entrenched after two decades of conflict with the Mexican government. “Mexico’s cartels are some of the strongest and most organised criminal organisations in the world,” he said. “Carrying out targeted military strikes would be more of a PR stunt than anything else. It won’t stop one of the world’s most lucrative illegal supply chains.”
Mexico has struggled with cartel violence since launching its own war on drug groups in 2006, a conflict that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and a fragmented criminal landscape.
The White House has launched at least twenty strikes since September on boats it said were transporting drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific. The operations have killed at least eighty people, though the administration has not made public evidence linking the vessels to specific cartels, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.
Officials have described the campaign as a “non-international armed conflict” targeting “narcoterrorists” and “unlawful combatants,” reviving language used during President George W Bush’s post-9/11 operations against groups such as al-Qaeda.