Defense secretary Pete Hegseeth and Donald Trump are open to the use of military power such as air strikes and special troops against drug cartels in Mexico.
Trump has long had problems with the criminal rings and he promised during his campaign 'to wage war against the cartels'.
Only on Monday did some suspected cartel members opened brutal fire on the American border patrol who kept an eye on a hot zone of drugs and human smuggling on the border with Texas-Mexico. The agents returned the fire to Mexico, although no injured was being injured.
For their role in producing deadly drugs on their way to the US, such as Fentanyl, the president said he would bring the fight to the cartels to put the medicines in America.
Hegseeth spoke on Friday morning with his former Fox News colleagues, revealed that Trump instructs him to make resources needed to go after the cartels.
Host Brian Kilmeade asked Hegseeth: 'If we notice that they continue to shoot at border control and they continue to place Fentanyl in our country, as a Minister of Defense, are you now allowed to go after them in Mexico or where they are? '
“Brian, I don't want to get the president ahead and I won't do it,” the secretary started. “That will eventually be his decision.”
“But let me be clear,” he said. “All options will be on the table if we are dealing with what is designated as foreign terrorist organizations that focus specifically on Americans at our border.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseeth told his former Fox News colleagues that Trump keeps 'all options' on the table to deal with Mexican cartels. This may mean that a series of different military tactics can be used against the criminal groups
Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which operates 23 out of 32 states of Mexico and his capital, Mexico City, has extended his drug trafficking operations to 11 states in the US, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration
Jalisco New Generation Cartel Pose for a threatening record sent to a local TV station
The broad reaction of Hegseeth could be conceived as every series of American military power, including strikes from the land, sea or air, can be 'on the table' to go after the cartels.
Hegseeth also noted that the American army is also shifting its attitude to better defend the country at home, including through threats from Mexico.
“The army orientates and shifts to a concept of the defense of home country on our sovereign territorial border,” Hegseeth told Kilmade. “That's something we will do and do it robustly.”
'If other options are needed to prevent the cartels from continuing to pour people, gangs and drugs and violence into our country – we will assume that. So the president will make that phone call. '
Since 2019, the number of Americans who died of Fentanyl has almost tripled, according to federal data, increased from 31,000 deaths by overdose to 87,000 in 2023.
The synthetic opioid – which is usually produced in Mexico with the help of ingredients from China – is responsible for around 80 precent of overdose killing throughout the country.
The substance is deadly that fentanyl poisoning was the most important cause of death of Americans aged 18 – 45 in 2022.
'I will use all the necessary military assets, including the American navy, to impose the entire Navy Embargo on the cartels,' Trump promised in 2023. To our movement of land. “
Handout photo released by the Ministry of Defense and the Navy on January 31, 2025, shows two suspects presented with confiscated illegal drugs at an unknown location in Mexico. The government of Mexico, under increasing pressure from US President Donald Trump to curb drug trafficking, announced on 31 January that it had seized 18 kilos of Fentanyl in a bus
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) pose for a photo in an unknown location, in Michoacan State, Mexico, July 1, 2021
A truck full of fentanyyl pills discovered by the Mexican authorities in December 2024
Moreover, I will order the Ministry of Defense to make appropriate use of special troops, cyber warfare and other open and secret actions to cause maximum damage to cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations. '
The Republican also classified the cartels such as foreign terrorist organizations, a federal indication that could lead to real consequences for the criminal groups.
Pers secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday that a rate of 25 percent will be levied on 1 February on Mexico and Canada.
A rate of 10 percent will also be imposed on the same day against China.
Leavitt said that the financial movements against the countries were partly due to their lacking action against illegal drugs and immigrants who flowed to the US
American Border Patrol stationed on the Mexican border was fired by a presumably drug cartel in an attempt to smuggle illegal migrants to Texas on Monday
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) pose for a photo in an unknown location, in Michoacan State, Mexico, October 15, 2022
'Tomorrow the president will implement a rate of 25 percent on Mexico, a rate of 25 percent on Canada, a 10 percent rate on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have bought and can distribute to our country that killed tens of millions of Americans, “Leavitt said.
The real number of Americans that died because of fentanyl, however, varies in hundreds of thousands, not tens of millions.
Cartels have been increasingly hostile to the US in recent years.
And Monday's firefight between the criminals and border patrol agents have become a more frequent event along the border.
The firefight broke out in Fronton, Texas, near Guadalupe Guerra, exactly a week after President Donald Trump returned to the office.
Images shows a small group of ragging cartel members who cross from Mexico to an island in the Rio Grande River.
No American officials were injured in the fight so that Border Patrol returned the fire in Mexico.
