Americans are showing a surprising appetite for direct military intervention in Mexico to wage war against the smuggling cartels that are pumping drugs and illegal immigrants into the U.S.
A new poll this month found 61% of Americans back the idea of deploying the military to “fight the Mexican cartels.” That followed another poll released in May that found 53% of Americans support “deployment of U.S. military personnel and assets inside Mexico.”
The idea has gained strength amid the chaos of the southern border and calls from high-profile GOP presidential hopefuls, including former President Donald Trump and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Mr. Trump has said he would use American special forces against the cartels. Mr. Scott said he would “allow the world’s greatest military” to attack them.
The TIPP/Daily Mail survey this month found support for intervention across party lines, with majorities of independents, Democrats and Republicans — though the GOP was the most enthusiastic, with 70% backing the idea, compared to 58% of Democrats.
Another survey done by TIPP for the National Sheriffs Association last month specifically asked about sending the American military into Mexico, and that also drew majority support.
Mr. Trump’s plans include a naval blockade.
Experts generally pan the idea.
“Not a fan,” said Todd Bensman, author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
“The whole thing just seems like a pretty questionable endeavor. I don’t know how we would win that or what we would call a win,” Mr. Bensman said.
He said the cartels would be defending their own ground, and to wipe them out would probably take U.S. troops occupying territory.
Mexico’s government tried something similar under former President Felipe Calderon, in a war that cost tens of thousands of lives, but didn’t settle things. Mr. Bensman said the Mexican government gave up too early and should be pushed to try again, but he said the best the U.S. could do is support those efforts.
Moving in without Mexican support is also a bad idea, Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of Defense for homeland and hemispheric affairs, told Congress earlier this year.
“I do worry, based on very strong signals we’ve gotten from the Mexicans in the past, concerns about their sovereignty, concerns about potential reciprocal steps that they might take to cut off our access if we were to take some of the steps that are in consideration,” she said.
Indeed, Mexican President Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador has fumed at the idea.
“We are not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory,” he said in March.
He was responding to talk of U.S. intervention after four Americans were attacked and kidnapped in Matamoros by cartel operatives. Two of the Americans died of gunshot wounds, while the other two survived and were released, one with gunshot wounds in the leg.
A Mexican woman was also killed by a stray bullet.
The attack has been labeled a case of mistaken identity.
The Gulf Cartel released an apology letter accepting responsibility and saying it was turning over some of its people to authorities.
In the wake of the kidnapping, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said he would craft legislation to pave the way for American troops to be committed to battling the cartels. In late March he introduced a bill to create a task force to come up with a strategy.
The bill has not seen any action.
A lesser option of formally designating cartels as terrorist organizations has more widespread support.
But the idea that military options would be attractive to Republicans is surprising, given the party’s general antipathy toward military adventures.
The Biden administration last month ordered 1,500 troops to the border, though they were assigned tasks in the U.S. and were instructed not to engage in law enforcement. They are generally prohibited from being used to enforce laws in the U.S. under the Posse Comitatus Act.
Texas has also deployed its national guard, assisted by fellow red-state governors who have sent their troops, too.
But the plans from GOP presidential hopefuls go further.
Rolling Stone reported that Mr. Trump has asked for a “battle plan” to go into Mexico. He was following up on ideas he had while in office, detailed by his former Pentagon chief, to shoot missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs.
Mr. Scott said he will go after the cartels until they “cease to exist.”
“I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists — because that’s exactly what they are,” he said in announcing his presidential run.
The cartels make money off everything that moves north across the border. Traditionally, drugs were the big source of money, but in recent years the size of the migrant smuggling economy has grown to rival drugs.
Illegal immigrants caught by border agents as they are smuggled in are paying anywhere from a couple of thousand dollars to $35,000 to make it over, according to The Washington Times’ database of smuggling cases.
A standard smuggling fee for a single adult Mexican migrant is currently between $9,000 and $10,000, while $15,000 is a typical payment for a Central American.
Everyone involved in the smuggling gets a cut, including guides who shepherd migrants through Mexico and across the border, stash house operators who hold the migrants and drivers who ferry the migrants to their destinations. The cartels also usually take a flat “mafia fee” of about $1,000 for allowing the use of their smuggling routes.
Given the numbers at the border over the last year, the smuggling economy totaled more than $20 billion.
But it’s the flow of fentanyl that’s particularly captured Republican policymakers.
They blame Chinese outfits for crafting the “precursor” drugs that Mexican cartels then cook into the deadly opiate, shipping it into the U.S. where it accounted for the vast majority of the nearly 110,000 drug overdose deaths recorded in 2022.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.