Trump’s drug war isn’t adding up

An unclassified still from the US Department of Defense showing a “go-fast” boat allegedly smuggling narcotics in the Caribbean. Image source: UPI/Alamy.

by Andrew Law, editor and founder.

I want to pause this week to point out an incongruity in the Trump administration’s supposed war on drug trafficking that is posing challenges around how we best cover this critical topic. This isn’t my usual kind of column, but I hope you’ll bear with me.

The press — and I think most people generally on both sides of the border — see Trump as having gone hard on traffickers. The militarized southern border, the arm-twisting of Sheinbaum and her MORENA allies, downgrading Colombia, and of course, the bombing of passenger boats in the Caribbean. Last week, I highlighted rumors that the fuel theft scandal engulfing Mexico’s Navy (and discussed in more detail this week by Luis Rubio) is being propelled by leaks out of Washington. It all gives the impression of a major realignment of US security posture. But when you zoom in, despite the novelty of some of these events, it just doesn’t hang together.

Take the boats. The US has blown up at least four “go-fast” boats in the Caribbean. Trump officials say they were smuggling drugs from Venezuela with zero evidence provided. The one photo released by authorities in the Dominican Republic and run by the New York Post of immaculate bricks of cocaine, supposedly salvaged from a boat that was literally blown up at sea, looks laughable. Trump, posting on social media about the bombings, wrote that “No US Forces were harmed in this strike. STOP SELLING FENTANYL, NARCOTICS, AND ILLEGAL DRUGS IN AMERICA, AND COMMITTING VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM AGAINST AMERICANS!!!” But almost no fentanyl comes out of Venezuela, and the major cocaine routes run hundreds or even thousands of miles west, through Mexico and the Pacific, as the Wall Street Journal has recently laid out.

Now put that beside what’s happening in US courts. The administration went out of its way to take the death penalty off the table for Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of the founders of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Rafael Caro Quintero of Guadalajara Cartel fame. Same story for Los Zetas leaders Miguel and Omar Treviño Morales, extradited earlier this year. Technically, dropping capital charges was required under Mexico’s extradition terms. But Zambada wasn’t extradited, and the US showed very little concern for Mexican sensibilities in how they captured him. That’s extraordinary deference to a mass murderer from an administration that’s otherwise happy to blow people up on the high seas with zero nod to international law.

And then there’s the bigger picture. While the Trump administration would likely point to recent US Coast Guard interdictions in Miami as evidence to the contrary, cocaine is pouring into the US at record levels and record low prices. Asked about surging consumption by Americans in the same WSJ article, Trump’s DOJ basically shrugged, saying the border is more secure than it’s ever been despite this contradictory evidence.  The administration has also dissolved the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, working against its own priorities. At the same time, they keep praising Sheinbaum’s government for “historic cooperation.” But concrete details of that cooperation are unknown. For all the hype about coordination, no one can say what Trump and Sheinbaum have actually agreed to in detail. Meanwhile, most reports out of Mexico regarding the Sheinbaum administration’s actions against organized crime look a lot like this – unmanned labs being busted, and low level party operatives being hung out to dry. Forgive my cynicism, but that’s the same roleplay we’ve seen across multiple previous administrations.

So here’s where we land: big military theatrics offshore, surprising leniency in court for the most notorious traffickers in history, and a wall of secrecy around US-Mexico security policy. Taken together, an opaque picture emerges of contradiction and confusion. Certainly, none of it adds up prima facie to a coherent and new anti-narcotics posture.

I don’t have the answer to what these contradictions mean. And that’s precisely why it’s causing difficulty in terms of how we cover this topic. Both administrations harbor corrupt actors, and both prize loyalty over competency. But there is also real cooperative work happening outside what’s visible. The point is neither administration has incentive to be transparent; both prize narrative control over on-the-ground reality. So we really don’t know what they’re up to, or how these pieces fit together. Until someone is able to dig deeper, I urge you to keep in mind that this apparent drug war crackdown may not be what it appears to be.