Trump and his ilk want to bomb Mexico to stop the flow of fentanyl

It’s serious. Donald Trump and a growing chorus of Republican parliamentarians in both Houses of Congress are proposing to attack the drug cartels in Mexico militarily, even with bombings and despite the fact that the Government of that country is not cooperating in the operations. The goal is to slow down the entry of fentanyl into the United States.

The ultra leader previously proposed to end the large centers of production of narcotics in the neighboring nation to copy bombs. It was the year 2020, the last of his mandate. The then-governor asked his Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, about the possibility of “launching missiles at Mexico to destroy drug labs”… and doing it in secret. Esper ignored the suggestion, which he would reveal two years later in his book, A Sacred Oath.

A week ago the chairman of the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives, the Republican and Trumpist James Comer, confirmed that, indeed, his boss “ordered to bomb a couple of fentanyl and crystal methamphetamine laboratories in Mexico , but for some reason the military did not do it”. And he added that in his opinion that resignation “was a mistake”.

Comer expressed this opinion during an interview on the television show Fox and Friends. The presenter asked him “what are we waiting for to use our military force” to eliminate the cartels. And the congressman replied: “This is a great question that we continue to ask Joe Biden.”

In fact, Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz introduced a bill in January that seeks authorization for the use of the military to “go to war with the cartels that are causing the fentanyl crisis “.

This crisis is not at all negligible. Fentanyl, an opioid 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin, caused the overdose deaths of about 80,000 Americans in 2022, when fewer than 60,000 died during the entire Vietnam War. Over the course of last year, police and Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 379 million lethal doses of fentanyl (two milligrams is enough to kill a person); that is to say, an amount sufficient to exterminate the entire population of the country, of 332 million.

What is debatable, as well as shocking, are the approaches and strategy that more and more Republicans are defending to address the crisis: “The cartels are at war with us and are turning Mexico into a failed narco-state. It’s time we aim directly against him. Our legislation will put us at war with them by authorizing the use of military force to fight them,” argued Representative Crenshaw when defending his bill. And he added: “We must start treating them like the Islamic State”, that is to say as terrorists “because that is what they are”.

In the Upper House, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy presented their own proposal at the beginning of March to, likewise, “give the military the authority to pursue these organizations wherever they are.” “Not to invade Mexico – said Graham – or to shoot down Mexican planes, but to destroy the drug laboratories that are poisoning the Americans”.

Trump, in the middle of his campaign for re-election – in addition to preparing his defense against the legal cases he has before him – has been asking his advisers for military options to attack the drug lords south of the Bravo River. And one of the contributions he has focused on is a document from the conservative Center for Renewing America that would serve as a road map for the president and commander-in-chief of the US to “formally declare war on the cartels”; if possible “enlist the Mexican Government in joint operations”, but with a warning: “It is vital that Mexico not be led to believe that it has veto power to prevent the US from taking the necessary measures to secure its borders and its people”.

The White House yesterday announced new measures and tougher sanctions against drug dealers to combat fentanyl trafficking. But Biden and the head of the US military, General Mark Milley, disagree with the ideas of Trump and his supporters. “I would not recommend that anything be done without the support of Mexico,” says Milley. It seems obvious, as otherwise it would create a serious bilateral conflict. It’s another thing that Donald Trump cares.