War with Mexico? Trump’s Strange and Reckless Proposal

Of all the strange and reckless things Donald Trump has indicated he will do during his renewed presidency, his proposal to launch a war of aggression against Mexico is an outsider.

For years he has been in speeches, interviews and a self-narrated video on his campaign websitethe former and possibly future president has threatened to send military resources, including “Special Forces, Cyber ​​Warfare and Other Overt or Covert Actions” to Mexico to “inflict maximum damage” on drug cartels for their importation of deadly fentanyl and other drugs. This oft-repeated promise comes from the same man who calls himself the only president in recent history not to have started any new wars.

Mexico rejects and condemns this unequivocal military threat against its sovereignty. Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO as the leftist leader is known, denounced this “insult to the Mexican people.” Xóchitl Gálvez, the conservative opposition candidate for president who recently lost, pleaded with his conservative supporters in the US: “Instead of threats, we need to act smartlyAMLO even strongly warned the Republican Party that the popular politician could tell the Mexican diaspora in the US to vote against the GOP.

Trump’s attempt to create a war with Mexico pushes wide open the door on traditional Republican preferences to treat Latin America as a place to destabilize, plunder and shut down. New York Times observed last year that “Mr. Trump’s idea of ​​military intervention south of the border has rapidly evolved from an Oval Office fantasy to something approaching Republican Party doctrine.” That symbiosis reveals much about the MAGA’s true relationship to militarism. A contingent that embraces violence against out-groups at home will never bring about peace abroad.

MAGA Conspiracies Unleashed

Fentanyl is a public health crisis far outside my area of ​​expertise, so I won’t pretend to know how to solve it. But as a normal person, I understand that nothing that resembles a response to the real problem involves bombing, invading, sanctioning, or digitally sabotaging the U.S.’s southern neighbor and major trading partner. Fentanyl smuggling, data compiled by the libertarian Cato Institute shows, is mainly the work of American citizensnot the cartels. A normal politician would have no problem saying this. But that would not describe Trump’s vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

Vance won his Senate seat in Ohio in part thanks to a uncontrolled position that the Biden administration weakened border security for fentanyl to “kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland.” Fentanyl in this story is a weapon of mass destruction used in treasonous collaboration with a foreign criminal element against an American gentlemen. This provides an added pretext and urgency for all the draconian border militarization measures that are central to MAGA’s agenda and appeal. We are so far from normal that it’s hard to remember what normal is from here.

To call the Mexican attack a plan is generous. As my former Daily Beast colleagues Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley reported for Rolling StoneTrump considered sending “kill squads” to decapitate the cartel leadership. It is a rehash of an earlier idea from Trump’s presidency, unveiled and rejected by his Defense Secretary Mark Esper, to bomb drug labs of cartels and deny responsibility. Trump, Suebsaeng and Rawnsley said they also asked his advisers for “scenarios for possible airstrikes, drone strikes and deployment of U.S. troops.” Trump is also proposing a “full naval embargo on the cartels.” In February, the U.S. Navy reportedly closed the ports of a indispensable Trading partner of the US.