WHAT POSSIBLY COULD GO WRONG? DRONES, MEXICAN CARTELS, AND TRUMP
The Steady State | By Annie Pforzheimer, May 5, 2025
Foreign policy professionals discuss worst-case scenarios to be prepared for even unlikely eventualities, to see if there are fixes to possible security gaps. Common sense, law and custom tended to guard against extreme outcomes. But now, what was unthinkable has become our daily reality.
Imagine one such situation. It’s the summer of 2025. The Supreme Court tells the White House that its formulae for invoking emergency Executive powers won’t wash – because there’s no emergency with which to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. Meanwhile, a weeks-long spate of bad economic news pushes presidential poll numbers below 40 percent. What might the White House do? An international incident is a well-proven way to bring those poll numbers higher, as a natural affinity for authority kicks in when citizens feel threatened, while conveniently providing the context for use of emergency powers.
I believe, as a retired diplomat who served in senior positions in both Mexico and Afghanistan, with expertise on questions of counternarcotics, security, and U.S. warfare, that the scenario to discuss – and prevent – is that of a drone strike in Mexico.
A President can order a lethal drone strike on any individual or group deemed to be a threat to the security of the United States; this is a version of the argument (in tandem with the 2002 Authorization For Use of Military Force (AUMF)) used by the Trump, Biden and Obama administrations to be able to launch attacks on Houthis based on their threat to international shipping, among other such actions.
In the case of Mexico, the Trump Administration has already put in place preliminary theoretical support for such an action, namely a terrorist designation of major cartels which went into effect on February 20, resting in part on the high death toll of Americans who have overdosed on fentanyl. Under this logic, a military drone strike could be ordered within Mexico to kill a cartel kingpin or destroy a fentanyl lab. Furthermore, the CIA also has specific authorities under which the President can order drone strikes.
Before a strike has to come targeting. The U.S. military and CIA already are deployed along the U.S. border and CIA overflight intelligence-gathering is being conducted in cooperation with Mexico. A March 2025 unclassified summary of United States intelligence targets highlights the threat of non-state drug traffickers, a new level of attention which will prioritize surveillance assets to locate labs and high value targets.
The Mexican government has already stated clearly that they are not remotely okay with this possibility. But would the Mexican government need to approve? On a purely logistical level, they might not. A drone flying over Mexican airspace would set off a reaction by the Mexican military that could include shooting it down, after a hotline call to the US Embassy to verify the target and demand it return to U.S. airspace. Diplomatically, there’s a tricky moment of telling a host government not too soon or too late about something they won’t like. In all likelihood the Mexican government might be told “slightly too late”, rather than asked, and threatened with retaliation if they do shoot it down.
Mexico’s post-attack response isn’t easily predictable. What will restrain the Scheinbaum government are the high stakes; so much of Mexico’s economy depends on U.S. trade. Will it be the “we knew about it” face-saving statement? Will it be a stormy but limited “everyone in the U.S. Embassy leave Mexico City now” response? Or extreme talk of physical retribution by the Mexican military, perhaps against the hundreds of gun stores along the U.S. side of the shared border, whose product kills nearly as many Mexicans as those in the U.S. dying of fentanyl overdoses?
Conceivably there could be Mexicans who are happy that there is an external “sheriff” who patrols their skies. But that seems unlikely, given the massive grudge that is hardwired into Mexicans given the multiple U.S. invasions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The six teenaged “boy hero” cadets who died in 1847 fighting US invaders in Mexico City are revered; legend has it the last one leapt to his death from the wall he was defending, wrapped in the Mexican flag to keep it out of the hands of the enemy.
What if there are major casualties? Fentanyl labs and cartel Capo homes are in urban areas. How many people would be hurt or killed? The lives of non-combatants are clearly being lost in the Yemen strikes. Do the rules of war apply? Would there be an attempt at compensation or explanation, or just silence?
There are 1.2 million US citizens living full-time in Mexico, many of them retirees, and thousands more visiting on any given day. Cartels have been careful not to kill US citizens in the past, for the most part, because they fear what would happen next. But if the worst has happened, would they hesitate? Or would an aggrieved and patriotic citizen decide to act? And would that action give the Trump Administration the emergency they might be looking for, which could more thoroughly circumscribe Americans’ civil rights?
I am sure this scenario is a slim possibility, but it’s sloppy planning to examine only best-case options. There are reasons to think through the “low probability high impact” risks. One reason is to make sure we see the warning signs in time to ensure that it doesn’t actually come to pass. It’s absolutely time for Congress to put up better guardrails on the use of drones by all elements of the U.S. government – and time for our allies in Mexico to make it clear why such a use cannot be considered. Public scrutiny and attention need to be employed to prevent what could go very wrong, very close to home.
Annie Pforzheimer is a retired senior U.S. diplomat who served in Mexico, Turkey, El Salvador, and Afghanistan. She is a Non-Resident Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adjunct professor of international relations. Ms. Pforzheimer is a member of The Steady State.