Republican David McCormick, a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania and a Trump ally, calls for bombing Mexico

A Republican running for Senate in Pennsylvania calls for the bombing of Mexico as part of a war against drug cartels David McCormick, the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, expressed support for using the US military to unilaterally to attack targets deep in Mexico as part of the war over drugs, claiming it would help limit the shipment of fentanyl.

“I’m not saying we’re going to send the 82nd Airborne Division to make a jump into Mexico,” McCormick, an Army veteran and ex-hedge fund executive, told the Associated Press. “What I’m saying is that the combination of special operations and drones, I think, could wipe out the manufacturing facilities, destroy the distribution networks and put a real dent in what is a terrorist activity.”

McCormick’s call for military intervention in Mexico follows similar calls from other Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. McCormick, who said the U.S. should not seek Mexico’s consent before launching attacks on its territory, did not respond to Salon’s request for comment.

Trump already proposed attacking Mexico while in power, but was subsequently shut down by government officials. But now there is a much larger chorus of Republicans eager to take drastic action, ostensibly designed to curb the flow of illegal drugs. Any military action would have the potential to increase migration and have an unpredictable impact on security in Mexico.

Mexico tried similar heavy-handed tactics on its own in the 2000s, resulting in 60,000 deaths and 230,000 displacements while the cartels remained in power.

A US military operation to curb drug trafficking in Colombia also largely failed, at great human and material cost. But that hasn’t stopped McCormick from citing that effort as a model for Mexico.

The Republican has also explicitly opposed seeking prior approval for what would be an infringement on Mexican sovereignty.

“The time for negotiating with the Mexican government to get their DEA on this is over,” McCormick told an audience in September. “We have to take tough action against it. And that’s what I would do.”

Former Mexican President Andrés López Obrador, in response to similar calls for a US war in Mexico in 2022, said his administration “would not allow any foreign government to intervene in our territory, let alone the armed forces of any government would intervene.” A break with Mexico, the US’s largest trading partner, would likely hurt both countries’ economies and end cooperation to stem the flow of migrants into the US

The Senate hopeful has also said he would like to see U.S. military assets used “selectively and thoughtfully,” but that has historically proven difficult to put into practice.

With information from the Boston Herald

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