Declaring war on Mexican cartels is popular. That doesn’t mean it’s smart.
U.S. presidential campaigns usually aren’t focused on foreign policy — which is actually a blessing because, when they are, the result is often crazy talk. If you doubt that, consider the latest policy idea that has been endorsed in some form or another by almost all the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination: effectively declaring war on Mexico’s drug cartels. Donald Trump plans to “wage war” and impose a “full naval embargo” on them. Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) says he wants to use “the world’s greatest military” to solve the problem. A recent poll found strong support for military action among GOP primary voters, so expect to see more such wild statements.
The problem that needs to be addressed is real and tragic. More than 70,000 people in the United States died from synthetic opioid overdoses in 2021, the last year for which we had data. The leading synthetic opioid is fentanyl, which is similar to but much more potent than heroin. These drugs are mostly made by cartels in Mexico. But the idea that using U.S. military force would solve the problem is delusional.
First, it would be an act of war against Mexico. That country’s government has been clear that it is utterly opposed to any use of the U.S. military to deal with its drug problem. And if it were to be convinced otherwise, the worst way to proceed would be for politicians in the United States to proclaim that they intend to use force regardless of what the Mexican government thinks. This kind of rhetoric is a gift to Mexico’s populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will use it to gin up anti-American nationalism in his country.
Second, it won’t work. Has Scott reflected on the fact that “the world’s greatest military” was unable to stop the drug trade in Afghanistan, a country that it occupied for 20 years? The problems in Mexico would be even greater: large areas of no-man’s land where the cartels operate, massively funded and armed militias, and many ways to shift production across borders.
