Trump Wants a War With Cartels—and May Just Get One
Donald Trump’s executive order designating cartels as terrorist organizations could give his administration greater power to impose economic sanctions, restrict travel, and potentially take military action abroad. On Monday, when signing the executive order in the Oval Office, Trump said that “Mexico probably won’t be happy.” But this proposal is not new—in his first term as president, Trump tried to impose this designation but was eventually dissuaded by Mexican authorities, who pledged to cooperate with the United States to combat cartels.
The idea of designating cartels as terrorists is decades old. “This began to be discussed in the 1980s, during Ronald Reagan’s administration, when drug trafficking began to be associated with the threat to national security. Since then, both Democrats and Republicans have promoted the concept of ‘narcoterrorism,'” says Oswaldo Zavala, author of Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture.
Now, the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has maintained that the bilateral relationship should be based on cooperation and not subordination, is obliged to treat the issue of migration and drug trafficking with caution. “Our relationship with the United States will be one of equals,” said Sheinbaum. She said she expects a dialog between the two countries to take place soon. “We will enter into communication and we know that there will be an agreement on different issues … reaching agreements on migration issues, recognition of the work of Mexicans in the United States, drug trafficking, weapons that cross from the United States to Mexico, cultural issues and, of course, trade issues. Always as equals,” said the president.
Mexico is one of the largest trading partners of the United States. Fracturing the relationship could have economic repercussions, including millions of US jobs.
In the order issued Monday, Trump specifically mentioned two criminal groups operating within the United States: the Venezuelan-born Aragua Train and the Salvadoran-born MS-13. Using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, his administration could implement additional measures to dismantle the financial networks of these organizations.
The narrative of US government extortion of the Mexican government has come from both Democrats and Republicans. One proponent of this idea was Hillary Clinton. “Clinton represented an interventionist stance. This approach is characterized by a hostile and militaristic view towards Latin America. In this context, Donald Trump appears to be continuing, in a more aggressive way, the already violent anti-drug policy of the United States. Over the decades, this policy has become progressively more violent and hostile. In the 1940s, military actions focused on eradicating crops such as marijuana and opium. However, in the 1980s, a more systematic fight against alleged criminal organizations began, and by the 1990s, a closer collaboration between the army and the police was consolidated, which led to an increasing militarization of public life in Mexico,” says Zavala, who also holds a PhD in philosophy. “My concern is that the concept of narcoterrorism amplifies the power of pressure, blackmail and, ultimately, this notion could inaugurate a new era of political violence justified by this discourse,” he adds.
Cartels Could Turn Into Real Terrorist Organizations
Supporters of the designation often point to violence against Americans as justification. But military action against the cartels could lead to more organized attacks against Americans, even within the United States. “Drug cartels could easily become full-blown terrorist organizations,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation.
Trump’s executive order could be turned against the United States. And the difference is that we have stopped talking about marijuana and heroin, gradually shifting to synthetic drugs, with fentanyl being the most serious public health case in recent times, with 70,000 people dying from the synthetic opioid in 2023.
“The problem with fentanyl is its ease of trafficking: It has no smell, comes in small pills, and is extremely discreet. In addition, most of those who traffic fentanyl are Americans, as are most of the users. This creates a paradox typical of drug policy. While there is talk of Mexican narco-terrorists, studies conducted in the United States show that the main perpetrators of fentanyl trafficking and consumption are Americans,” Zavala says.
This raises fundamental questions. “If they are going to designate traffickers as narco-terrorists, will they also include the Americans who are part of these networks? Because we are not just talking about the famous drug cartels, but also trafficking networks, money laundering, arms smuggling and other structures, many of which are incorporated in the United States. There is an enormous complexity in defining where a cartel begins and where it ends. There is a dispersion of actors, organizations and relationships on both sides of the border involved in drug trafficking. Therefore, to speak of narcoterrorism is to speak of something vague and imprecise. This term is not supported by concrete evidence; rather, its use is eminently political,” argues Zavala.
According to Zavala, the narrative allows figures like President Trump to use the concept of narcoterrorism as a tool of intimidation, threat and extortion towards the Mexican government. “Rather than describing realities, narcoterrorism is based on spectral notions, on political phantoms that are used to force Mexico to align with Washington’s interests,” he says.
An Executive Order to Intervene Militarily in Mexico
Intervening militarily in Mexican territory with selective incursions aimed at damaging the cartels is something that has been on the US radar screen for some time now. But analysts argue that it would be a shot in the foot for the Trump administration.
“By using the concept of narcoterrorism, the US government empowers itself to intervene militarily in Mexico. That is something very complicated, because intervening in that way would seriously damage the binational relationship, which is very delicate. It is almost inconceivable [the idea of military aggression],” Zavala explains. “I believe that in addition to the bravado, the Mexican government has generally been aligned because in the end our security policy has always been subordinated and violated; even subalternized by the United States.”
This Wednesday, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said that the secretary of foreign affairs, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, had a telephone conversation with US secretary of state Marco Rubio. She did not provide details of the conversation, but said it was “a very cordial conversation” and they discussed “migration and security issues.” Rubio has said that he would prefer that any action, any decision taken from Washington have the consent, the collaboration of the Mexican government.
“Cartels Do Not Exist”
Oswaldo Zavala (Ciudad Juarez, 1975) has specialized in Mexican narrative, and has an alternative vision of the narco phenomenon in Mexico. He believes that the image of the power of the cartels is exaggerated and sponsored by the State. The author of The Imaginary U.S.—Mexico Drug Wars: State Power, Organized Crime, and the Political History of Narconarratives (1975–2012), explains to WIRED that the war against drug trafficking is generally built on fantastical, contradictory and often absurd concepts, which gradually form an imaginary that presents drug trafficking in an alarmist manner.
“The US government has managed with great skill to create a long list of concepts, monsters and criminal actors that not only dominate the public debate in the United States, but also in Mexico. Thus, when Americans want it, one organization or another becomes the center of discussion. In the 1980s, for example, it was the Guadalajara Cartel, with figures such as Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. In the 1990s, the central figure was El Chapo Guzman, and later, Amado Carrillo. Today, the conversation revolves around fentanyl and, above all, the Sinaloa Cartel,” Zavala explains.
Zavala argues that the narratives used by the US government are ways of simplifying a complex problem, giving a common sense to the debate that would otherwise be much more complicated. “If we take into account that a large part of drug consumption occurs in the United States, that there are organizations within that country that facilitate trafficking, launder money and, in many cases, are as or more dangerous than the Mexican ones, the discussion becomes much more complex for the Mexican panorama. What these narratives do, then, is to simplify the situation, presenting Mexico as the primary enemy of US security. In doing so, the US government can intervene not only mediatically but also politically, diplomatically, and even militarily in Mexico,” he says.
“As citizens we must be very careful with the narratives that are generated from Washington,” he warns. “It is essential to learn to analyze them critically and to distance ourselves from what we are being told. This process is neither easy nor quick, since, unfortunately, not only the Mexican government repeats these narratives, but the media also replicates them, and sometimes institutions and other actors push them. And, to complicate things even more, a popular culture is created that feeds these ideas: today there are already corridos about fentanyl, about the ‘Chapitos’ and about the supposed criminal empires of the cartels. It is very difficult to escape from all this.”
A War That Has Left More Than 100,000 People Missing
More than 100,000 people have been missing in Mexico since 1964, when the count began. The National Registry of Disappeared and Unaccounted for Persons has for months now exceeded this figure, which is evidence of the grave situation in the country. Most of these people were registered as missing since 2006, when the administration of Felipe Calderón, who took the army to the streets to combat the violence of organized crime, began.
“Many of the most serious effects of the anti-drug policy we have been suffering in Mexico for decades. More than half a million murders since the militarization began with President Calderon, more than 100,000 forced disappearances. We know that all that violence is unloaded, above all, against poor, racialized, brown young people, who live in the most disadvantaged areas of the country,” says Zavala, who is surprised when people are alarmed by what Trump says. “As if we weren’t already living, for years now, a really serious wave of violence in the country.”
According to the researcher, military violence is often expressed as a form of social control, as a management of violence. “You’re not going to see militarization in areas like the Condesa or Roma, but in the margins of Mexico City, in the most impoverished areas. The violence is happening in the peripheries, in the poorest neighborhoods, where there is not even adequate monitoring by the media or human rights institutions,” Zavala says.
What should surprise us, Zavala says, are the very high rates of violence we are experiencing, as a background of what is already happening, not of something that is yet to come. “I think we still don’t fully understand that this violence has a clear class dimension. It is not generalized violence, but systematized and directed against the most vulnerable sectors of society,” he says.
The Solution: Demilitarizing the Country
The decision taken by Calderón 16 years ago to entrust the Army with the responsibility of public security in several areas of the country has shown us its fatal consequences. Both Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged, during their respective electoral campaigns, to return peace, security, and civility to us. However, once in power, both presented proposals to consolidate, through legislation and even constitutional reforms, the militarized public security model. The situation does not seem to change with Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration.
In this way, Mexico’s recent presidents have maintained a “peace and security” policy based on a militarized strategy, justifying it on the supposed operational incapacity of police corporations to confront organized crime.
“I agree with the view that drugs need to be decriminalized, addictions treated, all that. But in my opinion, most of the violence in Mexico is not necessarily linked to drug trafficking, but to the experience of militarization itself. And I think there is solid empirical data to support this idea. We know that there is a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ militarization in Mexico,” Zavala explains. “Before the deployment of the army, our homicide rates were declining throughout the country, and there is a direct correlation between military occupation, the presence of the armed forces, and the increase in homicides and forced disappearances.”
In Zavala’s opinion, the only way out of this spiral of violence in Mexico is to demilitarize the country. But it’s not as simple as it might sound. Militarism is part of a global trend, and we are living in an era in which all Western democracies are becoming increasingly militarized, with effects similar to those we have experienced in Mexico.
“Military violence in the United States, for example, is also being discharged against minority and racialized populations, and, in addition, we have an unstoppable flow of weapons going from the global north to the global south. All of this is accompanied by extremely violent policies of control and security that in reality translate into extermination strategies and operations,” he says. “I don’t see many ways out, because while López Obrador’s government fills its mouth with speeches about sovereignty, militarism continues to advance. They continue to defend crimes against humanity committed by the army, they continue to detain and deport migrants, and they continue to use the army as a force for violence and social control. I don’t believe there is any real will to dismantle the infrastructure of violence that militarization has created in Mexico.”
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.