US Plans Covert Action Against Cartels in Mexico As the Government Seems Timid and Inept in Fighting Them

While most are focused on the growing pressure campaign by the United States to drive Venezuela's Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man dictator, Nicolas Maduro, from power, the Trump administration is spreading its focus to include Mexican drug cartels. According to current and former government officials familiar with the situation, speaking with NBC News, "The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels."

According to the story, training is underway for this operation, but no decision has been made to pull the trigger, so to speak. This mission would differ from previous missions by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies into Mexico. In the past, the U.S. has quietly deployed CIA, military, and law enforcement teams to Mexico to support local police and army units fighting cartels, but not to take direct action against them. This time around, the troops involved would be U.S. Special Operations Forces operating under what is called Title 50 authority. Title 50 is the section of the U.S. Code that governs "War and National Defense." This permits U.S. military forces to serve under the direction of the CIA rather than a U.S. combatant command, such as USSOUTHCOM. The first U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was Special Forces soldiers, working for the CIA under Title 50, training anti-communist guerrillas in Laos. During the Global War on Terror, small numbers of Special Forces soldiers working under Title 50 were embedded with friendly armies and paramilitary police forces in parts of the world where al Qaeda and ISIS were operating.

A lot of things about the story make sense. Taking on Venezuela's drug cartels makes no sense unless Mexico's cartels are also targeted. Adopting covert actions under Title 50 gives Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum the plausible deniability she requires to remain in power. In responding to an April report that the U.S. was considering drone strikes, she vetoed the idea, saying, “We reject any form of intervention or interference. That’s been very clear, Mexico coordinates and collaborates, but does not subordinate itself.”

Sheinbaum is at least making an effort to control the drug flow into the U.S. Since her election in 2024, Mexico has deployed 10,000 troops to the U.S. border, increased fentanyl seizures, and extradited 55 senior cartel figures to the U.S. She has even sent an indicted Chinese fentanyl trafficker to the U.S. The fact that Cuba arrested the fentanyl guy and turned him over to Mexico shouldn't be overlooked. Cuba gets 100 percent of its oil from Venezuela.

That said, Mexico remains fragile and the government exists at the suffrance of the cartels. Even though there are no Mexican states where the cartels exert overt control, there is no doubt that 30 to 40 percent of Mexico is a no-go zone for the Mexican government if cartel bosses give the word. To fully understand the problem and why U.S. direct action may be imminent, check out this video and the links below.

Just Saturday, the mayor of the city of Uruapan, in the western coastal state of Michoacan, was gunned down by narcotics traffickers during a local Day of the Dead religious festival. Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, according to the Wall Street Journal, had "publicly challenged Sheinbaum to prove that the government’s 'hugs, not bullets' strategy, introduced by her predecessor and mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, could succeed in reducing crime in Uruapan."

Manzo founded a political group called the Hat Movement, a reference to his emblematic cowboy hat. Known by residents as blunt and impulsive, Manzo had a hands-on approach to law enforcement. He fearlessly expressed what no one else dared to say in a community terrorized by criminal gangs.
“We are surrounded by armed groups, surrounded by clandestine graves,” he said in a recent video recording posted on social media.

Michoacán is the territory of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also known as the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, commonly abbreviated as CJNG.

The weakness of President Sheinbaum was pretty evident when she blamed everyone but the cartels for the assassination.

Hoy salió Sheinbaum furiosa contra los medios, periodistas, comentócratas, empresarios, la derecha, tuiteros, etc.

Contra todos… menos contra los narcos, los verdaderos responsables del asesinato de #CarlosManzo.

A ellos no los toca ni con el pétalo de una rosa.

Revelador.
— América Rangel (@AmerangelLorenz) November 3, 2025

🇲🇽 After the brutal murder of Uruapan’s Mayor Carlos Manzo in Michoacán, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum blamed “the right wing” for wanting to “bring back the war on drugs.”

Sheinbaum dismissed stronger security measures or foreign assistance, insisting that “intervention… pic.twitter.com/n8QT1dbnFQ
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 3, 2025

Covert direct action operations in southern Mexico could be exactly what is needed to flip an entire region from the control or influence of drug traffickers and give the elected governments a chance ot operate.

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