Trump administration to crack down on Mexican cartels with lethal new strikes

Military sources have indicated the Trump administration is preparing for lethal strikes against key targets in Mexican cartels.

Sources told journalist Ken Klippenstein that the US’ Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was directed to manage the attack plans and have them ready by the middle of next month.

One senior intelligence official told Klippenstein that US President Donald Trump is “uniquely focused” on so-called ‘transnational criminal organisations (TCOs)’ and has “shown himself to be willing to take unilateral action despite potentially negative political ramifications”.

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Now, the Special Operations Command (SOCNORTH) that is part of NORTHCOM is being asked to prepare potential strike targets and “direct action” - smaller attack operations - against the likes of the notorious cartels Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation. That means the US could be preparing strikes similar to ones seen caried out in the Middle East. It may involve air and drone strikes.

On his Substackpage, Klippenstein wrote: "Think of the airstrikes on Iran this summer as a kind of direct action, against a discrete target with a “strategic” or national purpose."

The military action discussed by NORTHCOM is unilateral, meaning it would not involve the Mexican government and would be conducted without their approval, raising questions over Mexico’s sovereignty. Previous operations have been clandestine with a view of protecting the sovereignty of the US’ southern border neighbour.

Reports of NORTHCOM involvement may be representative of the Trump administration's approach to fighting cartels without full coordination with Mexico..

The senior official added that NORTHCOM, which says it “organises and executes homeland defence and civil support missions”, had previously been “sidelined” in operations involving Mexico. It is however involved with combating cartels as part of a “military-to-military relationship between the United States and Mexico” that is “robust and expanding”, according to testimony to Congress from US Air Force general Gregory Michael Guillot.

Questions over Mexican soverignty have been raised before. In 2021. then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reined in DEA agents operating in Mexico and accused the agency of wholesale fabrication when it arrested Mexico's former defence secretary.

But in 2023, López Obrador asked Mexican lawmakers to approve increased US operations for “training” Mexican counterparts.

Mexico's incumbent President Claudia Sheinbaum has drawn a clear line when it comes to Mexico’s sovereignty, rejecting suggestions by Trump and others of intervention by the US military.

She denied on Tuesday that her administration had an agreement with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a day after the US agency announced “a major new initiative” to collaborate in the fight against drug cartels.

Sheinbaum was referring to “Project Portero,” an effort announced Monday by the DEA, which called it a "flagship operation” against smuggling routes that move drugs, guns and money across the border.

“The DEA put out a statement yesterday saying that there is an agreement with the Mexican government for an operation called Portero,” Sheinbaum said during her morning news briefing.

“There is no agreement with the DEA," she stressed. "The DEA puts out this statement, based on what we don’t know. We have not reached any agreement, none of the security institutions (have) with the DEA.”

Sheinbaum said the only thing that was happening was a workshop in Texas attended by four members of Mexico’s police force.

Later, without addressing Sheinbaum’s criticism, the DEA said coordination with its Mexican counterparts on the training was “a significant step forward in advancing and strengthening law enforcement and intelligence sharing with partners regarding an issue that has positive implications on both sides of the border.”

Monday's DEA statement mentioned that workshop, saying it had brought Mexican investigators to one of its intelligence centers to train with US prosecutors, law enforcement, defence officials and members of the intelligence community.

Mexico's visibly annoyed president made her comments just days after generally positive exchanges between the two governments following another extension to ward off threatened US tariffs and another shipment of 26 drug cartel figures to the United States from Mexico.

Sheinbaum's administration had taken a more aggressive stance toward pursuing Mexico's drug cartels and sent dozens of cartel figures sought by prosecutors to the US. The thing that seemed to have her bristling Tuesday was the DEA sending out a statement without proper coordination.

Trump has shown an aggressive stance towards cartels. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US must start treating cartels as “armed terrorist organisations”. Experts have also drawn parallels to the kind of approach taken by the US towards terrorist organisations following 9/11.

The American leader blames cartels for the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into US communities and for perpetuating violence in some of its cities. This week, it also emerged that the US deploying three Aegis guided-missile destroyers to the waters off Venezuela.

And in March, the US' annual threat assessment call cartels the "most immediate and direct threat to America’s security".