Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
Towards the end of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, the fascist dictatorship which has come to power in the US has launched a war of aggression against Mexico. I thought of this as I read that President-Elect Donald Trump has been talking about using US special operations units against Mexican drug cartels.
Trump had considered launching missile attacks against the cartels in 2020, the final year of his first term as president. Mark Esper, at that time Trump’s secretary of defense wrote in his 2022 memoir, A Sacred Oath, that Trump claimed that “No one would know it was us.”
Never doubt the staying power of a bad idea. Rolling Stone reported in November 2024 and January 2025 that the incoming Trump administration is contemplating a “soft invasion” to obliterate Mexico’s drug cartels; the only question in their minds is the scale of the incursion. US military action could take the form of targeted assassinations or abductions of cartel leaders, airstrikes on drug labs, training of Mexican troops, raids on cartel bases by US special operations forces—or all of the above. These actions would be taken with or without the Mexican government’s consent.
Trump’s plan is being called “Iraq all over again.” It’s also good, old-fashioned Yankee imperialism. Mexicans have not forgotten la intervención estadounidense en México (the 1846 to 1848 Mexican War), a straight-out land grab of half of Mexico’s territory. The western and southwestern US states are almost entirely made up of conquered land. One year earlier, in 1845, the US annexed Texas. In the twentieth century, US forces would intervene twice during the Mexican Revolution: first, in 1914, by invading the port of Veracruz in response to a slight against drunken US sailors who had been briefly detained by the Mexican army; then, in 1916-17, by dispatching a “Punitive Expedition” in a failed attempt to hunt down Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa after Villa raided the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
Trump’s plans for Mexico are consistent with his overall imperial designs. Trump has renewed an offer from his first term to purchase Greenland from Denmark. Greenland provides an access route to the Arctic where a clash between the US and Russia is shaping up over the Arctic’s oil. Trump has sent his son Don Jr. to scope out Greenland, giving rise to the question: what has Greenland done to deserve this?
Trump also threatens to retake the Panama Canal; and (jokingly?) refers to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor of the Great State of Canada” while exulting on his social media site Truth Social at the prospect of Canada becoming the “51st state.” (Trudeau announced on January 6 that after nine years he is stepping down as premier.)
At a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 7, Trump would not rule out using the US military against Panama or Greenland, but added that only “economic force” would be brought to bear against Canada. Good to know. Trump hasn’t used the words “Manifest Destiny,” but that’s probably due to his ignorance of US history.[1] Trump’s followers have often celebrated him for not starting any “new wars” during his first term. Now, it appears that he’s ready to start two or three.
You may object that the Trump administration cannot justify an invasion inasmuch as Mexico has not attacked the US. There you’d be wrong. In a November 25 post on Truth Social, Trump echoed other Republican hawks in labeling as an “invasion” the entry of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and “illegal Aliens” into the US. In the same post, Trump declared:
“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders. This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
Then, on December 22, Trump told an audience at a gathering of the far right Turning Point USA that upon taking office he would “immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.” This move could make military action in Mexico legal under US law, although without the Mexican government’s consent attacks would still constitute aggression under international law. That would be fine by Trump. Violating international law does not bother Trump any more than violating domestic law.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has only been President of Mexico since October 1 and already she has to contend with a crazy Gringo—a crazy, misogynistic Gringo. President Sheinbaum and Trump have yet to meet, but during a November 27 telephone conversation, which both leaders described positively, the Mexican president tried to impress upon Trump that his threatened 25 percent tariff on Mexican goods could devastate both nations’ economies. Earlier, the Mexican Embassy released a November 26 letter from President Sheinbaum to Trump which warned that if the US raised tariffs on Mexico, Mexico would retaliate by raising its own tariffs on US goods.
In a farcical postscript to the call, Trump claimed on Truth Social that President Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.” Sheinbaum fired back on X (formerly Twitter) that she had said nothing of the kind: “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples” (English translation).
Finally, President Sheinbaum has dismissed the possibility that there will be a “soft invasion” from the US, but stressed that Mexico will always defend its sovereignty.
It is impossible to say how far Trump’s jingoism should be taken seriously; or whether Trump actually believes things like his claim that the US “spend[s] hundreds of billions a year to protect [Canada].” In trying to read Trump’s intentions, it may help to recall Trump’s 2015 boast to Fox News that he was “the most militaristic person there is.” In any event, Trump’s expansionist noises ought to put paid to any lingering belief that Trump is a dove or an isolationist. Nor should anyone expect Trump to put an end to “forever wars,” one of the reasons the MAGA crowd gives for supporting him. We will have to wait for answers.
Notes.
[1] It is amusing that a columnist for the rambunctiously conservative New York Post opposes the US acquiring Canada—not out of any namby-pamby concern for Canada’s sovereignty, but because Canada “would drag the US down.” Let’s hope Republicans go on thinking that.
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