President-elect Donald Trump is once again threatening the Mexican government with tariffs in a seeming bid to get the country to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
However, the Wall Street Journal reports that things could quickly go south for Trump if he goes further and authorizes unilateral military action against drug cartels in Mexico.
Craig Deare, who served early in Trump’s first administration as senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, tells the WSJ that an American military incursion into Mexico could send the security situation into a downward spiral.
"If we think things are bad in terms of drugs and immigration, now intervene in Mexico and watch what happens,” he said. “You can launch a hundred, a thousand drone strikes. And our demand is going to ensure the continued flow of drugs into the country.”
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Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City security consultant, similarly warned that Trump authorizing military action in Mexico would end badly.
"Of the three issues up for negotiation, migration, trade and security, security is the most complex,” Guerrero told WSJ. “It can be seen as a threat because it can affect Mexico’s territorial sovereignty. It is a historical issue.”
Additionally, writes WSJ, the challenges in stopping the flow of fentanyl into the United States have no quick fixes given that demand for the drug is so high in the U.S.
"Fentanyl is cheap to produce and easily smuggled," the paper notes. "In some large areas of Mexico, organized crime groups dominate local and state officials. Different attempts to fight the gangs, sometimes with U.S. support, have led to violence at home without making any dents on the drug business."