Lower than a month after President Trump signed an govt order declaring drug cartels as terrorist organizations, American spy planes are patrolling the border to seek out data on their leaders.
The US army has intensified its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels, conducting no less than 18 spy airplane missions over the southwestern border and the worldwide waters off the Baja peninsula in simply the final two weeks.
This surge contrasts sharply with the earlier tempo of roughly one mission per 30 days. And it follows directives from Trump geared toward securing the border and curbing drug trafficking.
It marks a shift in priorities the place the US army is transferring property from operations abroad to deal with the disaster on the border.
The precise use of the collected intelligence stays ambiguous, with choices starting from justifying additional terrorist designations to coordinating with Mexico’s army to deal with the cartels.
Trump Administration Going After Drug Cartels
President Trump has already moved to categorise drug cartels as overseas terrorist organizations, thereby heightening hypothesis about potential US army interventions in Mexico.
He has beforehand expressed curiosity in bombing fentanyl labs. These flights could also be a precursor to additional motion.
“The Cartels 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,” an govt order signed by the President on Inauguration Day reads.
“The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States.”
In the course of the 2024 marketing campaign, President Trump instructed voters he would designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
They positioned their belief in him to ship, and tonight, he did.
PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT. pic.twitter.com/kXAaw4doLk
— Trump Struggle Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 21, 2025
RELATED: Former AG Invoice Barr Calls For Army Motion Towards Drug Cartels Inside Mexico’s Border
Bomb The Cartels?
President Trump reportedly inquired throughout his first time period about secretly bombing unlawful cartel drug labs and was extensively ridiculed over the concept.
Now, that’s what America voted for – decisive motion to cease the disaster. No person is laughing any longer.
Former Secretary of Protection Mark Esper, in his memoir A Sacred Oath, indicated Trump, throughout his first time period, was keenly centered on the fixed stream of medication throughout the southern border from the drug cartels.
“We could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” Esper claimed Trump articulated. “No one would know it was us.”
Former Lawyer Basic Invoice Barr has really conveyed comparable sentiments.
Barr, in a Wall Avenue Journal op-ed, in contrast the Mexican drug cartels to ISIS and advocated for the USA army to take them on inside Mexico’s border.
Border Czar Tom Homan has stated he expects army actions to ramp up concerning the drug cartels.
“I think the cartels would be foolish to take on the military, but we know they’ve taken on the Mexican military before, but now we have the United States military,” Homan instructed ABC Information final week. “Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely, because the cartels are making record amounts of money.”
Conducting surveillance flights appears to point the operation will probably be ramping up pretty quickly.
