President Donald J. Trump in 2020 asked Mark T. Esper, his defense secretary, about the possibility of launching missiles into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” and wipe out the cartels, maintaining that the United States’ involvement in a strike against its southern neighbor could be kept secret, Mr. Esper recounts in his upcoming memoir.
Those remarkable discussions were among several moments that Mr. Esper described in the book, “A Sacred Oath,” as leaving him all but speechless when he served the 45th president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/politics/mark-esper-book-trump.html
I love that kind of creative thinking!
Personally I think we should make it clear to the cartels that we now have a zero tolerance policy and will hunt down and kill cartel leaders and personnel who traffic fentanyl. Also that we will close the land border to all traffic until concrete actions are taken.
At the same time we need to indicate to China that this is a red line and that further exports of fentanyl components to Mexico will result in confiscation of all Chinese national assets in USA which will be redistributed to victims families.
This is the equivalent of the opium wars and we need to get serious.