US President Donald Trump has said he is talking with Mexico about possible military intervention.
Published November 18, 2025
US President Donald Trump said he may expand his unprecedented attack on drug cartels in Latin America to include Mexico, Reuters and television network NBC reported.
“Will we go on strike in Mexico to stop drugs? That’s fine. I’m talking to Mexico. They know my position,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of people to drugs, so now we’re shutting down the waterways, but we know all the routes.”
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President Trump did not say when or how such an attack might occur. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has previously said she opposes such attacks on her country’s soil.
Geoff Garmany, associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Melbourne, told Al Jazeera that Mexico City’s opposition may fall on deaf ears. “There are several legal hurdles in the way, some domestic, some international. There are also fundamental protocols of international diplomacy that are probably not bound by law but are generally respected by UN member states,” he said.
“But there is nothing about Trump’s second term in office that suggests he will abide by these laws and protocols. So, no, I would be surprised if Trump really wanted to carry out an attack in Mexico and wait for President Sheinbaum’s approval.”
Trump’s remarks came two weeks after NBC reported, citing two administration officials, that the White House was preparing for the initial stages of a ground operation in Mexico that would be conducted jointly with U.S. intelligence agencies. The report said the operation would focus on drone attacks on pharmaceutical laboratories and cartel members in Mexico.
In remarks at the White House on Monday, President Trump suggested the United States already had a final list of targets. “We know all the routes. We know the addresses of all the drug cartels,” Trump told reporters. “We know their addresses. We know their front doors. We know everything about each and every one of them.”
He described the situation as “war-like” as cartels were killing “hundreds of thousands” of Americans with drugs and other drugs. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl.
Gharmani told Al Jazeera that given the strength of Mexico’s drug cartels, U.S. attacks on Mexico are likely to be minimal. The Mexican government itself has been embroiled in a long and deadly conflict since declaring a “war” on drugs two decades ago.
“Mexican cartels are among the strongest and most organized criminal organizations in the world. They have extensive resources and occupy a unique geographic position between the United States and other Latin American countries. Carrying out targeted military attacks would be more of a PR stunt than anything else. There is no stopping one of the world’s most lucrative illicit supply chains,” he said.
Since retaking office in January, President Trump has used executive orders and legal loopholes to justify military action against drug cartels without Congressional approval. These include designating six drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” meaning the White House could justify military attacks as a matter of national security.
The White House has launched at least 20 airstrikes since September against ships suspected of transporting drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 80 people, but has yet to produce public evidence of ties to drug cartels like Venezuela’s Torren de Aragua.
The Trump administration has said the strikes were a “non-international armed conflict” targeting “narco-terrorists” and “illegal combatants,” reviving a controversial concept first coined during President George W. Bush’s “war on terror” to justify action against groups like al-Qaeda.
