The order is not a declaration of war, like a eliminating a cartel leader with an armed drone, but rather a green light for U.S. forces along the U.S.-Mexico border to pull the trigger if they make contact with suspected cartel members.
The New York Times, the first news outlet to report Trump’s order, said he did so because the cartels are recognized as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. government. President Trump signed an executive order to do that Jan. 20, his first day in office, and a State Department order in February named six cartels and two gangs as FTOs.
It is not clear if the White House purposely leaked the story to the liberal Times, which is no friend of the Trump administration, or if someone sneakily shared the order with the newspaper.
Back in March, when the cartels realized they were a target, the Times interviewed cartel members who expressed fear for their safety.
After the Times leak story published last week, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters U.S. armed forces will not be entering Mexico.
"It has nothing to do with Mexican territory," she said. "It has to do with their country. It does not involve our territory."
President Trump’s plan does have a lot to do with Mexico, however. There are seven major drug cartels operating in Mexico, all of them violent and powerful rivals. When not killing each other, they maintain some level of cooperation over territory while enriching themselves with narcotics production, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and border smuggling.
The most powerful of them all is the Sinaloa cartel, which is considered a global empire, and the Gulf Cartel and Tijuana Cartel operate on the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and California respectively.
Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst, tells AFN there will be a problem if Mexico cannot control the cartels, which it can’t, so the drugs and trafficked humans will keep flowing north across the border.
“Much like any other sovereign country, we’ll negotiate with the Mexican government,” he predicts. “But, if they fail to do their job, we’ll do it for them.”
According to Maginnis, President Trump has the authority to author a presidential "finding" if he believes the cartels pose a national security threat to the United States. That authority, part of the National Security Act, typically includes covert actions ordered by a U.S. president.
Mexico's politicians are threatened by cartel violence, and wooed by their wealth, so any cooperation with the Trump administration that permanently cripples the powerful cartels is unlikely.
However, Mexico this week announced it was extraditing 26 cartel members to the U.S. to stand trial. Among the cartel members is Abigael Valencia, leader of the "Lois Cuinis" cartel, Fox News reported.
