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Donald Trump has suggested he could soon begin land strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as part of the next phase in his war on ‘narco-terrorists’.
The president told Fox News ‘we are going to start now hitting land’ following several military operations against Venezuelan boats said to be ferrying drugs to the US across the Caribbean Sea.
He added: ‘The cartels are running Mexico, it’s very sad to watch, and see what’s happened to that country. They’re killing 250,000, 300,000 in our country every single year.’
Last week, Trump greenlit a brazen raid inside Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who both now face narco-trafficking charges in the States.
The move fits into the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, published last month, that lays out restoring ‘American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere’ as a key goal of his second term in the White House.
Trump also put Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia, and its leftist president, Gustavo Petro, on notice.
Asked what the limits are on his foreign policy powers in the region, Trump told the New York Times: ‘My own mortality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’
Map showing the next potential targets in Trump’s sights (Picture: Metro Graphics)
Mexico was among the countries who criticised the Venezuela raid, with President Claudia Sheinbaum saying such intervention had never resulted in ‘lasting well-being or stability’.
She added: ‘We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.’
Trump and his collaborators have flirted with the idea of invading or attacking the cartels in Mexico since his election campaign
Speaking after Maduro’s capture, he said: ‘You have to do something with Mexico. We’re going to have to do something.
‘We’d love Mexico to do it, they’re capable of doing it, but unfortunately, the cartels are very strong in Mexico.’
Mexico’s biggest cartels
Last year, the US formally designated eight Latin American crime groups as ‘foreign terrorist organisations’ – a label usually reserved for the likes of Islamic State or Al Qaeda.
Among them were some of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels.
They included:
Sinaloa Cartel
The Sinaloa Cartel, through various incarnations, is Mexico’s oldest criminal group – dating to the 1970s.
It is a criminal conglomerate, an umbrella of sorts for various groups, based in the mountains of the state by the same name in northwest Mexico. It holds firm control of the western portion of the US-Mexico border.
Sinaloa moves all sorts of drugs across continents using boats, planes, migrants and cross-border tunnels.
It’s considered the most corrupting criminal organisation in Mexico. A former security chief was convicted of helping them.
One of their most lucrative businesses in recent years has been the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the US.
Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Loera (Picture: AFP via Getty)
Sinaloa imports the precursor chemicals from China, produces the drug and smuggles it across the border.
The arrest of Sinaloa’s eldest leader, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada in July 2024 set off months of internal jockeying for power between Zambada loyalists and sons of the cartel’s best known former leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, already serving a life sentence in the US.
Jalisco Cartel
The gruesome discovery of some thirty dismembered bodies dumped in the hotel zone of Veracruz in 2011 announced the arrival of the ‘Zeta Killers’, who soon established themselves as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a hyper-violent and fast-growing group that spread through sort of franchise agreements with local gangs.
Jalisco, named for a west-central Mexican state where it’s based, has aggressively attacked Mexican authorities, including military helicopters, using explosive-dropping drones and improvised explosive devices.
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) pose for a photo at an undisclosed location (Picture: Reuters)
It even attempted a spectacular assassination of the then-Mexico City police chief — now Mexico’s security director — in the heart of the capital.
Led by Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera, the US Drug Enforcement Administration says Jalisco distributes tons of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl in all 50 states.
Gulf Cartel and Northeast Cartel
Both the Gulf Cartel and Northeast Cartel operate along the eastern end of the US-Mexico border, moving drugs, immigrants, guns and money in what is the most direct route to the US from Central and South America.
The Gulf Cartel has a long history in Mexico but has fractured in recent years spurring frequent clashes between factions.
Its former leader, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén (now imprisoned in Mexico after serving a sentence in the US), recruited members of Mexico’s military in the late 1990s to form a fearsome element known as the Zetas that eventually split and became their own drug trafficking organization.
The Northeast Cartel is a remnant of the Zetas.
The Northeast cartel has retained a relatively small portion of what the Zetas once ruled through relentless violence. Their base is Nuevo Laredo, the busiest commercial port on the US-Mexico border.
La Nueva Familia Michoacana and United Cartels
These local organized crime groups, operating in west-central Mexico, produce synthetic drugs, but they are a concern to the US because of something else: avocados.
Mmembers of the La Nueva Familia Michoacana cartel
Security analyst David Saucedo points out that the state of Michoacan exports $2.8 billion of avocados, a trade threatened by local criminal groups.
US inspectors working in Michoacan checking for pests have been threatened on multiple occasions by these groups, which control production and, to an extent, the price of avocados through extortion and threats to growers.
Analysts believe the threats will continue to be the Trump administration’s negotiation style, especially this year when the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement (USMCA) is up for revision.
Sheinbaum downplayed the possibility of US military action this week.
‘I don’t see risks (of that),’ she said.
‘There is coordination, there is collaboration with the United States government.
‘I don’t believe in (the possibility of) invasion, I don’t believe even that it’s something they are taking seriously.
‘Organised crime is not taken care with (foreign military) intervention.’
Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, is seen from a distance after a series of explosions in Caracas (Picture: AFP via Getty)
Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is escorted towards the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Manhattan (Picture: Reuters)
Sheinbaum has confirmed that the idea of US military intervention in Mexico has been brought up repeatedly in her conversations with Trump but said she has always rejected the offer.
She sees it has a non-starter and insists that her relationship with Trump is one of mutual respect.
The threat though, similar to those about tariffs on Mexican imports — some carried out and others not — have been a ‘negotiation weapon’ to get ‘commercial, diplomatic and political advantages’, said Mexican security analyst David Saucedo.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump ‘play good cop, bad cop’, with Trump threatening and Rubio smoothing over, he said.
Mexico is doing almost everything that Washington has requested since Trump began imposing tariffs, experts say.
Sheinbaum’s administration became more aggressive toward the cartels than her predecessor.
There have been more arrests, drug seizures and extraditions.
Mexico has also agreed to receive more deportees from other countries.
‘Intervention, military action in Mexico would suspend that cooperation,’ said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political analyst at Mexico’s Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).
That would be a great risk to the U.S. because it would be left without a partner to work with, he added.
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