President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to announce imminent land strikes on drug cartels in what would mark a further escalation of his campaign against alleged narco-terrorists across Latin America, following months of strikes against alleged drug boats at sea and just days after a U.S. military operation inside Venezuela that led to the arrest of its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels,” Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday night. “The cartels are running Mexico—it’s very, very sad to watch, and see what’s happened to that country.”
Read More: Trump’s Potential Next Targets After Venezuela
Trump did not expound further, but his comments hint at an expansion of U.S. military operations, potentially even into Mexico. Since September, his Administration has killed at least 115 people in more than 30 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with officials justifying some of those attacks by claiming the vessels were transporting drugs to the U.S. and passengers were members of drug syndicates.
It’s not the first time Trump has teased land strikes. In November, Trump told U.S. servicemembers that a land attack on suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers could start “very soon,” saying: “You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier.” And in late December, Trump said the U.S. “hit” a coastal drug loading facility in Venezuela, though he offered few details.
But while the strikes in international waters already raised legal questions, Trump’s latest incursion into Venezuela has led some opponents to call for the President’s third impeachment. Even the Republican-majority Senate passed a war powers resolution on Thursday to block further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, though the move was largely symbolic given that it is unlikely to pass in the GOP-majority House let alone be signed into law by Trump.
Backlash has not seemed to temper Trump’s military ambitions, however, even hinting at other potential targets, including Cuba and Mexico. Trump earlier mentioned Mexico, saying Saturday that “something’s going to have to be done” with the country’s drug problem. He said he had offered Mexican leader Claudia Sheinbaum U.S. assistance to “take out” the cartels, but Sheinbaum reportedly refused, with Trump saying that she was “very frightened” by them.
Sheinbaum has downplayed the likelihood of U.S. unilateral action on Mexican soil. “I don’t believe in [the possibility of] invasion, I don’t believe even that it’s something they are taking seriously,” she said on Monday. “Organized crime is not taken care with [foreign military] intervention.”
The Mexican President also reasserted the sovereignty of Mexico and other Latin American states: “We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. … For Mexico, sovereignty and self-determination are neither optional nor negotiable.”
