President Donald Trump is putting teeth into his pledge to take on the Mexican drug cartels. His new Executive Order redefines the war on drugs as a national security imperative and opens up new avenues to combat narcoterrorism.
He recognizes that drug trafficking constitutes a clear and present danger to the American Homeland.
Designating cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” enables military intelligence collection and helps freeze cartel assets, while tougher criminal penalties facilitate a proactive approach to winning the drug war once and for all.
Fentanyl and other drugs killed nearly a hundred thousand Americans last year. Mexican drug cartels operate in all fifty states and 1,286 cities. The Trump administration’s strategy goes beyond mere designation. A new homeland security task force will spearhead related actions within the U.S., while the new Secretary of Defense will determine how to use the military on American soil.
The reclassification acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: The fentanyl crisis represents a sophisticated form of irregular warfare targeting American society, with cartels serving as proxies in a broader strategic campaign coordinated by China.
Missing in past drug war efforts has been an actionable strategy to win with a defined end-state. Decades of whack-a-mole tactics against specific fentanyl manufacturers, drug kingpins, and traffickers, has done little to stop the flow of drugs into America. Winning requires rising above flashy Sicario tactics to big ideas that create strategic effects.
How Donald Trump Can Take on the Cartels
We suggest there are five actionable steps that that align with President Trump’s desire to beat the cartels:
First: Define the desired end-state and a strategy to achieve it. How are we going to win? What constitutes winning?
Second: Win the war at home. The President’s mindset recognizes that the United States needs urgent, tough-minded action to choke off demand. The strategy must include educating users, especially our youth, through credible social media outlets to stop using and tough, no-nonsense measures against drug dealers.
Third: Make China pay the price for supporting fentanyl manufacturers.
Persuasion hasn’t worked and won’t. What the Chinese understand is comparing cost to benefit. The President’s threat to impose stiff tariffs on China unless it cracked down on fentanyl will gain the attention of China’s leadership. There may be some economic collateral consequences, but if the goal is to induce China to clamp down Fentanyl, the President’s brass-knuckled approach is smart.
Why is drastic action required? President Xi Jinping promised President Joe Biden that China would crackdown at home. The promise proved hollow. Fentanyl manufacturing is financially lucrative operation across China.
Doug Livermore, an expert on the cartels, observes that China’s support for fentanyl manufacturers is part of a hybrid warfare campaign to harm the United States. Along with the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, he points out that in supplying carters with precursor drugs to make fentanyl, the Chinese are transforming the cartels from regional trafficking organizations into “sophisticated transnational threats that serve Beijing’s strategic interests.” China is blending criminal and political activity to undermine the social fabric of America. That’s unacceptable.
Fourth: Attack cartels as business enterprises. Cartels spend huge amounts on trafficking, and to recruit, house, cloth, feed, transport, and for security. Cartels also diversify their business activities from different drugs, farming, and mining.
Seizing their assets through Title 50 covert action would strike a meaningful blow. Otherwise, if special operations are needed, the DEA has 23 elite Special Response Teams across America that could be deployed highly effectively south of the border.
We’ve long advocated this strategy. The Washington Post reported in 2013 that the CIA also embraced it, but the risk averse Obama administration turned them down. But it’s the right move; it’s a lot of money.
Journalist Nicholas Shaxon contends the cartels are hiding trillions in offshore accounts. Trump’s designation allows the U.S. intelligence community to identify these assets. Seizing these would hammer their ability to function as an enterprise.
U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin Rodgers, assigned to Bravo Troop, Regimental Engineer Squadron, 2d Cavalry Regiment, provides security during Exercise Allied Spirit V at the 7th Army Training Command’s Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, Oct. 4, 2016. Exercise Allied Spirit includes about 2,520 participants from eight NATO nations, and exercises tactical interoperability and tests secure communications within Alliance members and partner nations. (U.S. Army photo by Visual Information Specialist Gertrud Zach)
Fifth: Drugs are a public health crisis. The administration’s push pushing for a nationwide rollout of funds for community health centers and mobile treatment units, and telemedicine solutions for rural and undeserved communities, makes sense.
Winning the drug war is tough and these actions will raise controversy. The President understands the gravity of the challenge. We urge him to take off the gloves in stopping the flow of drugs to save Americans from the scourge of fentanyl and other dangerous substances.
About the Authors:
James Farwell, J.D., is a senior fellow at the Sympodium—Institute of Strategic Studies and has advised U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Strategic Command. His books include Information Warfare (Marine Corp U. Press, 2020) and Persuasion and Power (Georgetown U. Press, 2011)
Lieutenant Colonel Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, Ph.D., (@JaharaMatisek) is a military professor in the national security affairs department at the U.S. Naval War College, and a fellow at the Defense Analyses and Research Corporation, European Resilience Initiative Center, and the Payne Institute for Public Policy. He has published two books and over one hundred articles on strategy, warfare, and homeland defense.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Naval War College, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
