Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump are open to using military force like airstrikes and special forces against drug cartels in Mexico.
Trump has long took issue with the criminal rings and he vowed during his campaign ‘to wage war on the cartels.’
Just on Monday some suspected cartel members brazenly opened fire on U.S. Border Patrol who were monitoring a drug and human smuggling hot zone at the Texas-Mexico border. The agents returned fire into Mexico, though no on was injured.
For their role in producing deadly drugs bound for the U.S., like fentanyl, the president has said he would take the fight to the cartels to halt the drugs flowing into America.
Speaking with his former Fox News colleagues Friday morning, Hegseth revealed that Trump is instructing him to make available any resources needed to go after the cartels.
Host Brian Kilmeade asked Hegseth: ‘If we find that they continue to fire at Border Control and they continue to put fentanyl into our country, as a secretary of defense, are you permitted now to go after them in Mexico or where they are?’
‘Brian, I don’t want to get ahead of the president and I won’t,’ the secretary started. ‘That’s ultimately going to be his decision.’
‘But let me be clear,’ he said. ‘All options will be on the table if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his former Fox News colleagues that Trump is keeping ‘all options’ on the table to deal with Mexican cartels. This could mean an array of different military tactics could be used against the criminal groups
Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which operates 23 of Mexico’s 32 states and its capital, Mexico City, has expanded its drug trade operations into 11 states in the U.S., Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration
Jalisco New Generation Cartel pose for a threatening recorded message sent to a local TV station
Hegseth’s broad response could be understood to mean any array of U.S. military might, including strikes from the land, sea or air, could be ‘on the table’ to go after the cartels.
Hegseth also noted that the U.S. military is also shifting its posture to better defend the country at home, including from threats emanating from Mexico.
‘The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border,’ Hegseth told Kilmeade. ‘That is something we will do and do robustly.’
‘Should there be other options necessary to prevent the cartels from continuing to pour people, gangs and drugs and violence into our country — we will take that on. So the president will make that call.’
Since 2019, the number of Americans who have died annually to fentanyl has nearly tripled, rising from 31,000 overdose deaths to 87,000 in 2023, according to federal data.
The synthetic opioid – which is typically produced in Mexico using ingredients from China – is responsible for roughly 80 precent of overdose deaths nationwide.
The substance is do deadly that fentanyl poisoning was the leading cause of death of Americans aged 18 – 45 in 2022.
‘I will deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy, to impose the full naval embargo on the cartels,’ Trump pledged in 2023. ‘We will guarantee that the waters of the western hemisphere are not used to traffic illicit drugs to our country.’
Handout picture released by the Ministry of Defense and the Navy on January 31, 2025, shows two suspects being presented with confiscated illegal drugs at an undisclosed location in Mexico. Mexico’s government, under mounting pressure from US President Donald Trump to curb drug trafficking, announced on January 31 that it had seized 18 kilos of fentanyl hidden in a bus
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) pose for a photo at an undisclosed location, in Michoacan state, Mexico, July 1, 2021
A truck full of fentanyl pills discovered by Mexican authorities in December 2024
‘Furthermore, I will order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.’
The Republican also classified the cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a federal designation that could lead to real consequences for the criminal groups.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned Friday that a 25 percent tariff will be levied on Mexico and Canada on February 1.
A 10 percent tariff will also be imposed against China on the same day.
Leavitt said the financial moves against the countries were, in part, due to their lackadaisical crackdowns on illegal drugs and immigrants streaming into the U.S.
American Border Patrol stationed at the Mexican border were fired upon by a suspected drug cartel in an effort to smuggle illegal migrants into Texas on Monday
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) pose for a photo at an undisclosed location, in Michoacan state, Mexico, October 15, 2022
‘Tomorrow, the President will be implementing a 25 percent tariff on Mexico, a 25 percent tariff on Canada, a 10 percent tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country that has killed tens of millions of Americans,’ Leavitt said.
The real number of Americans who have perished due to fentanyl, however, ranges in the hundreds of thousands, not tens millions.
Cartels have been increasingly hostile towards the U.S. in recent years.
And Monday’s firefight between the criminals and Border Patrol agents have become a more frequent occurrence along the border.
The gunfight broke out in Fronton, Texas, near Guadalupe Guerra, exactly one week after President Donald Trump returned to office.
Footage shows a small group of rifle-bearing cartel members crossing from Mexico onto an island in the Rio Grande river.
No U.S. officials were injured in the fight which saw Border Patrol return fire into Mexico.