I think Venezuela is just a low hanging fruit. Opiates shipped from China, and smuggled through Mexico and Canada are much bigger problem than cocaine.
The Trump Administration is turning up the heat on the narcotics issue and so far it's only Venezuela and China that are refusing to play ball let alone acknowledge their complicity in flooding the US with narcotics. Other explanations on Washington's sudden turn on Caracas, like the geopolitical angle explained above, are simultaneously true and even a prioritized. Yet that doesn't negate the strict and confrontational approach the Trump Administration 2.0 is following on narcotics smuggling.
Trump's belligerent attitude is showing mildly positive results, and especially Mexico is groveling. You won't hear about it on your alternative right foreign paid slopchannel of choice but the Mexicans got the message loud and clear. The Mexicans are turning on China and acting on the drug trafficking problem. Whether Sheinbaum's efforts will be considered sufficient remains to be seen. Colombia's communist clown Petro is hanging somewhere in between, a loudmouth troublemaker who is still smart enough to understand the power dynamics ergo prepared to make deals under the table. The above are in stark contrast to the loon Maduro, who flew F16s over US warships in international waters at least three times, and by word of Diosdado Cabello threatened sleeper cell attacks on US soil. You see the difference?
Both Mexican and Venezuelan government tied cartels got designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, yet only one is currently getting evaporated by US missiles in complete overkill type of explosions, with video footage proudly shared by the CiC himself. This, of course, is psychological warfare as it was once intended. Cartel members must be sweating like pigs, nervously staring at the sky when on a mission.
We cannot rule out future drone strikes on Mexican Cartel operatives and vehicles. When the first Rivermaster spyplane went up in January yours truly already mentioned incoming strikes over the Southern border. Strikes indeed happened but in the Caribbean instead. Regarding the Mexican dossier much will depend on Sheinbaum's attitude and results. The contingency strike plans are drawn up and laid out, and some very influential people are willing to go that route. A expansion of drone strikes to Mexico is most definitely a possibility.
Added are two short posts on the matter.
1. In the first report by Ken Klippenstein it is alleged that NORTHCOM has issued a top secret continency plan to strike Mexican cartels over the border.
U.S. Military Preparing Attacks on Mexican Cartels
The Trump administration has directed the military to prepare for lethal strikes against cartel targets inside Mexico, three military sources tell us. The Top Secret planning order, issued in late Spring, directs Northern Command (NORTHCOM) to manage the attacks, which are to be ready by mid-September.
Though U.S.-Mexico military relations are broad and cooperative, any military action south of the border is considered extremely sensitive for both Washington and the Mexican federal government and is rarely discussed in public.
“Not only is Donald Trump uniquely focused on TCOs [transnational criminal organizations, the official name for cartels], having designated them terrorists in one of his first Executive Orders, but he has shown himself to be willing to take unilateral action despite potentially negative political ramifications,” says one senior intelligence official. He and the other sources say that military action could be unilateral — that is, without the involvement or approval of the Mexican government.
The unprecedented order was discussed at a July meeting at NORTHCOM headquarters in Colorado Springs that was led by Colby Jenkins, the unconfirmed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. Within days, Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of NORTHCOM, hosted the two highest ranking Mexican military officials: Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Secretary of National Defense, and Adm. Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, Secretary of the Navy
Secret orders target cartels as the new terrorists
www.kenklippenstein.com
2. In the second post it is alleged that the Acting Administrator of the DEA Derek Maltz has advocated in favor of executing drawn up strike plans on cartel infrastructure in Mexico.
Officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) advocated for a series of military strikes against targets in Mexico earlier this year, alarming some at the White House and Pentagon, according to people familiar with the matter sho spoke with the Washington Post.
The discussions began roughly a month into the Trump Administration, after President Trump designated a number of drug cartels and criminal gangs operating in Latin America as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with DEA officials suggesting strikes against both cartel leadership and infrastructure sites in Mexico.
The Acting Administrator of the DEA at the time of these early conversations, Derek S. Maltz, told the Washington Post that he is “totally in favor of hitting the production labs and command control leaders in Mexico.” “The cartels have killed more Americans than any terrorist organization in the history of America, so they need to be held accountable,” Maltz said. Though he credited the Mexican Government under President Claudia Sheinbaum with “making substantial arrests and seizures and disrupting the cartels” but said “there must be way more done to stop them.”
