ACTION ALERT: Trump’s Approach to
The Fentanyl Crisis Is Dangerous
Win Without War & Ben Makuch / The New Republic
(February 28, 2025) — On the campaign trail, Trump stated military strikes against drug cartels in Mexico would “absolutely” be on the table. Friend, as president he just took a dangerous step toward making that terrifyingly bad idea a reality.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio just designated eight cartels and criminal groups as ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’ (FTOs).
It’s a move capable of sparking a diplomatic crisis with our southern neighbor and largest trading partner, spurring incredible instability within Mexico, and directly entangling US servicemembers in cartel crossfire.
If we don’t act fast, the Trump administration could tip the scales toward the kind of violence that ultimately empowers cartels and other violent actors and absolutely fails to reduce the flow of drugs or keep people safe, on either side of the border.
That’s where you come in. We need to ensure every member of Congress is aware of the deep unpopularity and dangers behind misguided proposals like war in Mexico — and they will, if they hear from constituents like you now.
The solutions the Trump administration is selling people in the face of a harrowing crisis that has devastated their communities and torn families apart — at the same time it dramatically rolls back public health programs and infrastructure here at home — are simply snake oil.
For well over four decades, the US-led “war on drugs” has been a catastrophic failure. It’s meant more violence, more corruption, more discrimination, and it hasn’t gotten drugs off our streets or supported people struggling with addiction.
But if the hawks get their way, what happens next would be a war on drugs on steroids.
As we speak, tension is building toward a perilous tipping point. In addition to the FTO designation, the CIA has recently ramped up surveillance drone flights over Mexico, Trump has deployed an additional 1,500 troops to the border, and there are reports that US Special Operations Command, which oversees the most secretive and elite military units in the country, is training Mexican troops on Mexican soil.
Military action has consequences, and millions of people in Nogales, El Paso, Ciudad Juarez, San Diego, Tijuana and more could be caught in the crossfire if we don’t pull back from the misguided path we’re on.
Communities struggling in the face of violence and addiction don’t need a rinse and repeat of bad drug or violence-first policy. We all deserve better than a government that would slow-walk us to an unnecessary and completely avoidable war on Mexico. That’s why we’re calling on you to speak out today.
We all deserve better than hawkish armchair generals in DC who would slow-walk us to another unnecessary and completely avoidable war.
People in the United States and Mexico alike face real challenges that require cooperation, diplomacy, and smart policy, not threats of bombs and invasion. Let’s shut down dangerous rhetoric about US strikes in Mexico now before it’s too late.
Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team
The US military’s growing footprint south of the border is making the outbreak of violence—and the deployment of more American troops—far more likely.
Green Berets and Reaper Drones:
Trump’s Shadow War in Mexico
Ben Makuch / The New Republic
(February 21, 2025) — As President Donald Trump ridicules Volodomyr Zelenskiy as a “dictator” who spent “$350 billion … to go into a war that couldn’t be won,” it’s obvious that his administration is shifting resources away from Ukraine, where US aid has been central to helping the country beat back a Russian invasion that began nearly three years ago.
That doesn’t mean that Trump is pulling back from the world, however. US war planners are increasingly focused on containing China in the Pacific. But Trump’s bellicose rhetoric on immigration and his fixation on the southern border are also leading the Pentagon somewhere the military hasn’t gone in over a century: Mexico, where soldiers are already being sent to help the fight against paramilitary drug cartels. Green Berets are currently in the country, training Mexican troops while American drones have been spotted in cartel territory.
The American military has quietly but dramatically increased its footprint south of the border in the early days of Trump’s term. If this trend continues, experts fear it could lead to an official US military campaign in Mexico.
Hours after being sworn in, Trump issued an executive order broadly labeling all Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a move that could lead to direct military actions like drone strikes or even targeted killing missions by American commando units. Two days later, Trump’s Department of Defense sent 1,500 active-duty soldiers to the US-Mexico border.
In late January, civilians using FlightRadar24—an open-source airplane tracking app—spotted RC Rivet Joint aircraft and P-8 Poseidons, which are used to collect imagery and suck up signal intelligence data, flying along the border with Mexico near cartel hotspots. Earlier this week, it was reported that the CIA was using MQ-9 “Reaper” drones, a war on terror staple that can be armed with missiles, on spy missions deep inside of Mexican airspace to tail cartels.
Now the US Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which oversees the most secretive and elite military units in the country, has confirmed to The New Republic that some of its soldiers are currently training Mexican troops on Mexican soil.
Reports first emerged earlier this week via the Mexican government and social media account that 10 American soldiers in the US Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (widely known as the Green Berets) were in Mexico on a training mission at a naval base in Campeche on the Gulf coast. Some speculated that the soldiers were there to carry out offensive missions on cartels, though representatives insist there is nothing nefarious happening.
“The security cooperation training focuses on enhancing interoperability, strengthening regional partnerships, and improving mutual readiness to address shared security challenges,” a representative from SOCOM told The New Republic in an emailed statement. “For operational security we will not provide the composition of or the identity of the individuals on this mission or the duration of the training.”
For its part, the Pentagon did not publicly disclose the training, which SOCOM was quick to downplay. “This is part of normal routine, pre-planned military training with the Mexican Marine Infantry as part of long-standing US-Mexico defense cooperation,” it said, but did not clarify if it was geared towards countering narco traffickers or when it was ordered. SOCOM added the training fell under a general agreement with Mexico to build its military capabilities.
The Green Berets, however, have a long history of being sent to train allied forces on missions in the lead-up to the outbreak of war.
In October 2001, Green Berets were deployed to Afghanistan, where they fought on horseback with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, becoming some of the first US soldiers on the ground in what would quickly become the war on terror. Ukrainian special forces sources have confirmed that American trainers were drilling them, long before Russia’s February 2022 invasion, while a retired Green Beret has claimed it was his famed unit working with the country’s military.
Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism and a research fellow at the Soufan Center, has been closely following the Trump administration’s evolving policies against the cartels.
“The designation of cartels and criminal organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations frees up more tools to disrupt and counter the financing and operations of these groups and may signal coming escalation,” Webber told The New Republic. “What form this will take is uncertain, but the combination of bellicose rhetoric and the marked increase in intelligence and security resources allocated to Mexico could very well lead to something resemblant of mission creep.”
The Pentagon is arguably as focused on Mexico as it is on China. On a call with his Mexican counterpart earlier in the month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth highlighted, “the importance of Mexico’s armed forces continuing to disrupt cartel activities that threaten the United States.”
If the Mexican government were to step up military actions against the cartels, it’s possible that American troops would be deployed as well. Regardless, Webber believes that escalation is practically inevitable. “The comparatively more aggressive policies towards cartels align with Trump’s stated prioritization of domestic security issues, and it is likely that further intelligence and military options will be explored as time goes on,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Trump made unilateral US action more likely by placing the Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, and other major regional narcotics-trafficking cartels on the official list of designated terrorist organizations.
Elon Musk, who dictates much of the Trump administration’s policy as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, giddily laid out the stakes on Wednesday: “That means they’re eligible for drone strikes.”
Ben Makuch is a national security reporter and former correspondent for VICE News Tonight. His reporting has taken him to the Middle East, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine, where he has covered the war since 2016. He hosted the 2022 podcast American Terror, about far-right extremism in the United States.
