A Cartel War Is Incredibly Stupid, But Trump Will Do It Anyway

Military action inside Mexico shouldn’t be an option at all, but among Trump and his advisers it is already taken for granted that it will happen in some form.

Van Jackson identifies some of the things that we can reliably predict about Trump’s foreign policy:

Will Trump preside over a growing defense budget that officially eclipses more than $1 trillion? Will US grand strategy remain primacist? Will economic statecraft consist primarily of tariffs and sanctions? Will the US military end up conducting operations of some kind inside Mexico’s borders? Will the US continue providing a blank check to Israel?

The answer to all these questions is assuredly “Yes.”

It remains to be seen what changes Trump will to the foreign policy he is inheriting, but judging from his first term it is safe to assume he will preserve the worst of Biden’s policies while reneging on any remaining useful diplomatic agreements. Trump is also likely to introduce some of his own ill-conceived policies. Launching attacks in Mexico will be one of these. James Bosworth warned last week that “the signs are that the incoming Trump administration is preparing for an actual war against the drug cartels in 2025 that goes well beyond the “War on Drugs” of the past.”

Military action in Mexico under the next administration does seem likely. Rolling Stone reports:

Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.”

The fact that this is a question that is being seriously discussed at the highest levels of the next administration is more proof that Trump’s foreign policy is going to be awful. If this is the sort of policy that they are debating, there is no telling what other reckless and destructive things they might attempt. Military action inside Mexico shouldn’t be an option at all, but among Trump and his advisers it is already taken for granted that it will happen in some form. It is a measure of how thoroughly the “war on terror” has corrupted and distorted our foreign policy debate that the idea of treating drug cartels as terrorist organizations and attacking them with the military is not only taken seriously but has a real chance of being turned into official policy.

A “war on cartels” will do nothing to address the flow of drugs into this country. It will impose huge costs on both the U.S. and Mexico. Military action in Mexico is the wrong tool in the wrong place at the wrong time. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera explained last month why a militarized approach gets everything wrong and pointed out the serious consequences it would have:

Declaring a war on cartels could be considered an “act of war against Mexico” and could have severe repercussions for the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor. Sending U.S. troops to Mexico could violate Mexico’s sovereignty and bombing cartels would likely cause massive destruction and death. Any U.S. war on cartels would be rooted in fallacies and a general misconception of the drug epidemic in the United States.

Trump’s threats to use force in Mexico have not received nearly as much attention and scrutiny as they should. When the candidates discussed foreign policy during their debate, Trump should have had to answer many questions about it, but it never came up. One reason that is never came up is that his election opponent was desperately trying to out-hawk him. Harris decided early on to attack Trump for being “weak,” so she was unwilling to go after him for threatening to use the military in a neighboring country.

Another reason why Trump’s threats have been overlooked is that the proposed military intervention is so incredibly stupid that relatively few people in Washington have taken Trump’s threats seriously. “Oh, that’s red meat for the base. Trump wouldn’t actually do that,” they say. Much the same was said about reneging on the nuclear deal when Iran was in full compliance, but that was wrong. The sheer stupidity of a policy idea is obviously no guarantee that Trump won’t do it. Trump has proven he will follow through on stupid pledges no matter how damaging those decisions may be to U.S. interests and to the other countries involved.

If he chooses to wage a cartel war, Trump will face few constraints from within his administration. Waltz, Hegseth, and Rubio have all expressed support for some form of military intervention, and they will be goading Trump on rather than trying to hold him back. Congress could try to throw a wrench in the gears, but they will likely do nothing to oppose another presidential war. The intervention will be one that Trump starts, and he will be the sole owner of it.