President Elect Trump says he will designate Mexican Drug Cartels as terrorist organizations.

 

Donald Trump during the speech when he made the announcement. Reuters. 

President Elect Donald Trump has vowed to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists organizations in a wider operation to control the flow of drugs into America. Reuters. Trump had made the threat during his first time but backed off after gaining cooperation from Mexico's former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. However, the flow of drugs has not subsided, with around 50,000 to 60,000 deaths expected from fentanyl and other related drugs. Trump said that the military could use covert and overt operations against the cartels involving special operations and cyber-warfare. In addition to the campaign against the cartels directly, Trump seeks to convince people to not be their customers, with a new ad campaign that would show the devastating effects drugs have on people, saying they would focus on how it can destroy your looks. 

My Comment:

This story kind of flew under the radar but it's kind of a huge deal. Trump essentially said that military force could be used against the Mexican drug cartels, which would finally involve the United States directly into the war. Regardless of what you think of that idea, you would think that would be the key takeaway from the story. But nope, half of the article was about Trump's plan to run some anti-drug advertisements. 

Will those ads accomplish much? Probably not. I don't think that the original Just Say No campaign did much and there was evidence that scare tactics, like the DARE program back in the day, actually did more damage than they helped. I think if you are going to run ads like this, appealing to vanity isn't the worst idea. I remember the "faces of meth" campaign and I think that was probably at least somewhat successful. Showing folks a bunch of fentanyl zombies might make them think twice about trying drugs for the first time. 

Regardless, that's not the main takeaway we should have from this announcement. Trump has essentially announced a potential military campaign. Designating the cartels as terrorists wouldn't necessarily result in combat, but Trump did say that we could be taking more direct action against them. 

But we should note that military action isn't the only thing this would affect. There would be legal action to be taken as well and it would also mean that folks with links to the cartels would be fast tracked deported if they were here illegally. 

The real question is what the government of Mexico will do. Trump does not have the kind of relationship with the new President, Claudia Pardo, that he had with AMLO and she has been trying to play hardball with him over the tariff issue. It's possible that this is just a threat on Trump's part and one that could be avoided if Pardo plays ball, like AMLO did. 

But if Pardo doesn't play ball, then I think it's very possible we could take some limited military action against the cartels. We certainly have a casus belli against them, they are facilitating the deaths of thousands of Americans every year and they represent a threat to our borders and citizens as well. And they seem to understand little else other than violence. 

Will it work out? It depends on what the goal is. If you are Mexico you probably aren't happy as any campaign against the leadership of the cartels would probably lead to civil wars in the cartels. But for America, that's a solution, not a problem. Chaos in the cartels means less drugs getting into America and fewer problems caused by those drugs. 

The one thing that could be a problem though is we could see reprisal attacks from the cartels. Right now they mostly leave American citizens alone, to avoid this very scenario. But if we declare war against them in a de facto manor, they may do the same to us, which could lead to terror attacks in the homeland and kidnappings and murders to US citizens in Mexico. 

But I think we have to do something. The drug problem is getting worse and it's a major reason why our life expectancy is so bad. Stopping, or even slowing down, the amount of Fentanyl out there would be a major good, even if the cost is violence... 

Who knows what will come to pass though. Trump's not in power yet and he is known to take a hard line as a negotiating tactic. Like I said, this could just be a message to Pardo, play ball or else. A deal could be made or it could be a bluff. Time will tell I guess.