According to a New York Times report on Aug. 8, President Donald Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon authorizing the use of military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed are terrorist organizations. The order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against drug cartels. U.S. military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after the groups, according to “people familiar with the conversations.”
But the bulk of the New York Times story focuses on the complex and apparently unresolved host of legal issues that could arise if the U.S. military is used to target drug traffickers in other countries, especially if operations are conducted without Congressional authorization or without the cooperation of the countries involved. It is unclear, the Times says, what White House, Pentagon and State Department lawyers have said about the new directive or whether the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has produced an authoritative opinion assessing the legal issues.
Mexico has rejected the prospect of U.S. military operations on its territory. “There will be no invasion of Mexico,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said yesterday after the Times story appeared, reported AFP. “We were informed that this executive order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel or any institution in our territory,” Sheinbaum told her regular morning press conference. The Mexican Foreign Ministry said later that Mexico “would not accept the participation of U.S. military forces on our territory.”
Sheinbaum’s remarks followed a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, which said both countries would use “every tool at our disposal to protect our peoples” from drug-trafficking groups. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said on X that the countries “face a common enemy: the violent criminal cartels.”
