Trump can fix the border and crack down on cartels in his second term

Our President’s highest responsibility is to ensure the defense of our nation, but for four years, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have neglected this crucial role.

The growing threats from China, Iran, and Russia remind us that keeping America safe involves more than just responding to attacks and provocations. It requires an active strategy to deter, dismantle, and destroy our enemies so they can’t harm America.

It is troubling that commitment to this principle is most lacking at our border with Mexico.

By allowing transnational drug cartels to operate with impunity—and by embracing policies that have made the cartels richer than they ever imagined—Biden and Harris, his border czar, have allowed a clear threat to America’s national security to spread across our southern border and into our country.

How can the next administration clean up the mess Biden and Harris have created?

First, we need to secure our side of the border.

We must immediately implement the “Remain in Mexico” policy we negotiated during the first Trump administration and make it clear that the only The only way to enter our country is by following the law.

That is why we must deploy military resources under the leadership of NORTHCOM to efficiently complete the border wall, and we must keep those resources there until the flow of migrants has subsided significantly.

We have the means to do this, we just need leaders who are willing to take our border security seriously.

Next, we must focus our energies on dismantling and destroying the primary cause of illegal immigration: transnational drug cartels that help terrorists enter our country undetected, that produce and distribute toxic drugs that kill our citizens, and that create an immigration crisis that destabilizes our country.

Tackling the cartels will be a huge task, but it is necessary.

Fentanyl overdoses are the cause of hundreds of American deaths every day. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

This poison is destroying families and gutting cities across America. The criminals who produce and distribute it must be taken to task.

The cartels also play a major role in the immigration crisis: By smuggling masses of illegal immigrants across our border, they overwhelm our Border Patrol and create opportunities to smuggle their illegal products into America undetected.

Actually destroying the cartels is not something that will happen overnight. It will take years of concerted effort and a fundamentally different approach to our relationship with Mexico. This change was initiated under the Trump administration, but was abandoned under Biden and Harris.

For too long, America has focused its resources and efforts on eliminating the leaders of the cartels, while reforming Mexico’s justice system and improving its security forces to stop the cartels’ activities.

In response, the cartels adapted, becoming less concentrated and introducing even more corruption into Mexican society.

The organizational infrastructure of the cartels now includes many smaller groups that are dispersed throughout and embedded within civilian populations throughout Mexico, a characteristic they share with terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

While military action against the cartels may seem attractive, these facts mean that precision strikes and joint operations alone are not enough to take out the cartels.

We need to create a new status quo, based on the principle of reciprocity.

If any country, Mexico or any other country, supports us in the fight against the dangers that threaten our homeland, we must support them and support them in every way possible.

Together with such allies, we must conduct joint military operations, carry out targeted strikes, share intelligence, and develop dynamic training programs.

But when a foreign government becomes complicit with – or even friendly with – our enemies, we must treat them accordingly.

We must cut off all financial support to that country, impose sanctions on individual political leaders, and be prepared to take unilateral military action to end the threat.

Experts estimate that a third of Mexico is currently under the control of a cartel.

The threat they pose is real and growing, and we must act in America’s interest. We must bring America First back to our foreign policy.

Finally, we should seriously consider officially designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

This move would send a clear signal to both partners and adversaries—from Mexico, where the cartels operate, to the Chinese Communist Party, which allows Chinese companies to sell fentanyl precursors to the cartels, and indeed to the rest of the world—that America will take whatever steps are necessary to destroy the cartels, with exactly the same urgency as if ISIS were trying to establish a caliphate south of our border.

Yet these regulations will mean little if the American people do not elect leaders who are serious about taking on the cartels and securing our southern borders.

Biden and Harris have neglected this duty; only President Trump can provide the national security Americans deserve.

Mike Pompeo served as Secretary of State from 2018 to 2021.