GOP military action in Mexico against drug cartels prompts warnings
4 Min Read
Republican Presidential candidates increasingly talk about using military action inside Mexico to take out drug gangs.
-
The border wall gap at the Morelos Dam between the US and Mexico in Yuma, Arizona on May 31, 2022. (AP)
Rising Republican support for the United States adopting unilateral military action in Mexico against drug gangs is scaring individuals on both sides of the border who are concerned that talk of military action may be getting normalized.
The Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday included near-unanimous agreement on the concept of deploying American troops to combat drug smuggling and migration.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis alluded to sending US forces into Mexico in order to "take out fentanyl labs, to take out drug cartel operations," while responding to Martha MacCallum of Fox News. DeSantis stated that he would do it on "day one."
Last January, the North American summit, dubbed the "three amigos" summit, discussed the heavy flow of fentanyl across the US border which killed more than 100,000 people in 2021 alone.
The GOP has recently embraced an eagerness to the idea, with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who previously expressed support for similar action.
Former President Trump's aggressive attitude to the bilateral relationship has paved the path for the concept, and according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's biography "A Sacred Oath," as president, he sought approval from the Pentagon to send missiles into Mexico.
Read more: Combating fentanyl needs global strategy similar to COVID's: US envoy
According to John Negroponte, the US' former permanent representative to the UN and former ambassador to Mexico, any action that is "unilateral by the United States vis-a-vis Mexico", particularly by armed officers, would be counterproductive to relations between the two countries.
Negroponte added that as the largest trading partner to the US, and due to the massive border shared between the two, such actions would be "ill-advised."
The US' last significant military involvement in Mexico ended in 1917 when Mexico's revolution reached its conclusion. The "punitive expedition," directed by Gen. John Pershing, saw 10,000 US fighters sent to northern Mexico over the course of a year.
In 1992, the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed after decades of stability in Mexico.
Military intervention could be a 'setback' to detail the relationship
A Mexican official told The Hill that the process could be destroyed if any military intervention were to occur and be a "setback" that would derail the relationship.
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson spoke out against the unilateral deployment of US military or police action in Mexico on Wednesday, citing his experience as the chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and calling on Lopez Obrador to be helpful, claiming that the actions against the cartel cannot work unless economic pressure is used.
In March, López Obrador stated that the proposal threatened Mexican sovereignty, noting that the country will not "permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less than a government’s armed forces intervene."
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), a global crisis negotiator who served as the US' permanent representative to the UN under Clinton, cautioned that military intervention in Mexico would both backfire and fail to address the underlying concerns.
Richardson added "It shows the nativist shift of the Republican Party from internationalism to irresponsible diplomacy. It would be a disaster if there were any military action against Mexico — a foreign policy disaster for the United States."
"Plus, it makes no sense to resolve the problem," Richardson added.
