Can Trump take down the cartels?

Spectator

a day ago

In December 1989, the United States invaded Panama. The objective was Manuel Noriega, a pineapple-faced general who'd risen to power in a coup d'etat and turned his small, Central American country into a pit stop for Pablo Escobar's cocaine moving north. Noriega fled to the Vatican Embassy, where the US Army blasted heavy metal music until the opera-loving despot surrendered.
The invasion of Panama took place when the war on drugs – at that time, crack cocaine – was a priority for the US government under George Bush Snr. Now, with the deadly opioid crisis and immigration on top of the agenda, Donald Trump might be treading in those footsteps. The commander-in-chief has signed an executive order greenlighting military action against Latin American mobs his administration has branded as terrorists, akin to Isis or al-Qaeda: several Mexican drug mafias, notably the Jalisco and Sinaloa; Venezuela's vicious Tren de Aragua gang and the Cartel of the Suns, a cabal of coke-dealing generals; and the tattooed gangbangers of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
While observers and insiders are sure something as drastic as Panama is unlikely, it's still unclear what Trump is trying to accomplish.
'It's very difficult to make predictions when it comes to Trump,' noted Phil Gunson, senior analyst for Crisis Group. 'However, full-scale military intervention is unimaginable, and any action would no doubt be limited to special forces or – more likely – some form of bombardment, probably using drones.'
In this reinvigorated war on drugs, the primary targets will likely be the Mexican cartels responsible for the deluge of fentanyl pouring over the southern border. For years now the Republicans have been calling to send in the troops, and Trump himself has reportedly pondered the possibilities, from a naval blockade to dispatching commando kill squads to liquidate narco warlords. Since Trump's return to the White House, the CIA has been flying spy drones over Mexico, perhaps laying the groundwork for a strike.
'It would probably be drone strikes rather than boots on the ground, but that could invite boots on the ground later, especially if the cartels decide to respond in kind,' says Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC.
'The Zetas [cartel] would murder their rivals and hang their bodies from bridges with signs saying 'this is what happens if you oppose us.' Imagine if the cartels started doing that with the thousands of US nationals – expats, retirees, corporate executives or embassy officials – that are in Mexico. Jimmy Carter lost his election in 1980 because of the 50 plus American hostages in Tehran. Imagine if they took hostages in Mexico and started sending back a finger or a limb each week.'
This won't be the first time Trump has let loose the dogs of war on drug peddlers, blowing apart the Taliban's heroin labs with warplanes in his first term. And yet, two decades of occupation failed to dislodge Afghanistan as the number one smack producer in the world.
'They're using a military solution to an economic problem,' said Tree. 'If you're fighting terrorists, they have a political objective and a command structure so they can order their footsoldiers to stand down and lay down their weapons. If you apply this strategy to drug cartels, you're actually making the drugs more valuable. You're amplifying the motivational feedback loop of the people you're trying to stop. So the question becomes then not if you're going to continue making money smuggling drugs, but how much money are you going to make? There's no command structure of the international drug economy that says OK everyone, surrender now, we've had enough.'
The potential for collateral damage is high. Tree pointed to US-sponsored counternarcotics efforts in Peru, where the army shot down suspected narco planes in the jungle. That practice ended after the Peruvians accidentally downed an aircraft carrying an American missionary and her daughter.
Then there's Mexico's fierce patriotism to consider. One origin story for the word 'gringo', as Mexicans call Yanks, dates back to the 1846-48 Mexican-American war, when American soldiers marched past crowds of Mexicans on the street chanting 'green, go home!'
'Mexican nationalism is largely defined in opposition to its powerful northern neighbour,' explained Gunson.
'The Mexican government has made it clear that it would never give permission for any form of military action by the US on Mexican soil. If Trump were to go ahead despite Mexico's refusal it would bring about the most severe crisis in US-Mexican relations in living memory, with repercussions throughout the region and beyond.'
Another possibility is striking Mexican cartels' affiliates in third countries such as Ecuador, where Blackwater chief Erik Prince has been spotted tagging along on drug busts.
The situation with Venezuela is somewhat different. The US has directly accused Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of running drugs through the Cartel of the Suns, and the Tren de Aragua gang of carrying out hits on his behalf, such as the murder of dissident Ronald Ojeda in Chile.
'There are two competing foreign policy factions wrangling over Venezuela within the Trump administration,' Gunson explained. 'The faction led by Marco Rubio favours 'maximum pressure' to force Maduro from power, while that led by special envoy Ric Grenell is focused on extracting advantages for the US regardless of who is in power in Caracas. Trump is much closer to the Grenell line, and much of the rhetoric about Maduro's alleged links to drug trafficking and terrorism is designed to enable the hardliners to keep their constituents happy, rather than indicating any genuine intention to move against the Venezuelan government. While the Maduro government is indeed corrupt and there are high-ranking Venezuelan officials linked to organised crime, the allegations themselves are overblown.'
For now, however, the criminals are not too concerned.
'I don't think so about Trump invading Mexico,' said a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. 'Is not so easy as he says.'