Team Trump debates ‘how much should we invade Mexico?’
Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels.
“How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.”
It is a question that would have seemed batty for the GOP elite to consider before, even during Trump’s first term. But in the four years since, many within the mainstream Republican centers of power have come around to support Trump’s idea to bomb or attack Mexico.
Trump’s Cabinet picks, including his choices for secretary of defense and secretary of state, have publicly supported the idea of potentially unleashing the U.S. military in Mexico. So has the man Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser. So has the man Trump selected as his “border czar” to lead his immigration crackdowns. So have various Trump allies in Congress and in the media.
Trump, who has routinely (and falsely) promoted himself as the candidate who would stop “endless wars,” now wants to lead a new conflict just south of our nation’s border. But at this moment, it is, in the words of one Trump adviser, “unclear how far he’ll go on this one.” This source adds: “If things don’t change, the president still believes it’s necessary to take some kind of military action against these killers.”
Another source close to Trump describes to Rolling Stone what they call a “soft invasion” of Mexico, in which American special forces — not a large theater deployment — would be sent covertly to assassinate cartel leaders. Indeed, this is a preliminary plan that Trump himself warmed to in private conversations this year. [Continue reading…]