The Trump administration has begun planning a “potential mission” on Mexican soil that would target Mexico’s notorious drug cartels, including with drone strikes, NBC News reported on Monday.
NBC didn’t name its sources, saying only that they are “two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials” who are familiar with “detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels.”
Citing the two current officials, NBC wrote that “the early stages of training for the potential mission” have begun, and noted that it “would include ground operations inside Mexico.”
However, the news organization said it was informed by the two current officials and one of the former ones that a U.S. deployment to Mexico “is not imminent.”
Citing the two current officials, NBC wrote that “discussions about the scope of the mission are ongoing, and a final decision has not been made.”
During much of 2025 there has been speculation that the United States military could carry out operations against cartels on Mexican soil.
However, President Claudia Sheinbaum has asserted that such operations won’t occur.
In May, she revealed that she had rejected an offer from U.S. President Donald Trump to send the U.S. army into Mexico to combat drug cartels. Sheinbaum said at the time that she told Trump that Mexico’s territory and sovereignty are “inviolable.”
For his part, the U.S. president said in May that “if Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it.”
On Sunday, the day after the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, was assassinated, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media that “the U.S. stands ready to deepen security cooperation with Mexico to wipe out organized crime on both sides of the border.”
Mission in Mexico would be secretive, sources say
Citing the current Trump administration officials it spoke to, NBC News wrote that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command would provide many of the troops who could be deployed to Mexico for a potential mission against drug cartels.
The same sources said that officers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would also participate in a U.S. mission in Mexico.
All four of NBC’s sources said that unlike in Venezuela, where U.S. foe Nicolás Maduro is in power and the U.S. could soon conduct land strikes, the potential mission in Mexico is not designed to undermine the Mexican government.
Still, “the mission currently being planned for would be a break with past U.S. administrations, which have 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,” NBC reported.
“If the mission is given the final green light, the administration plans to maintain secrecy around it and not publicize actions associated with it, as it has with recent bombings of suspected drug-smuggling boats, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.”
Again citing its four sources, NBC wrote that the Trump administration “would prefer to coordinate with the Mexican government on any new mission against drug cartels, but officials have not ruled out operating without that coordination.”
Unilateral U.S. action in Mexico would be an affront to Mexican sovereignty and its staunchest defender — President Sheinbaum. Bilateral relations — largely premised on close security and trade collaboration — would certainly be damaged by such action, if not irreparably harmed.
NBC’s report comes a week after the U.S. military carried out at least one strike on an alleged drug boat located in international waters off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast. The attack, one of four strikes on Oct. 27 that killed a total of 14 alleged drug traffickers in the eastern Pacific, was condemned by Sheinbaum.
Mexico searches for lone survivor of US strikes on alleged drug boats that killed 14
In a manner that would be similar to the United States’ recent attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, NBC, again citing its four sources, wrote that “under the new mission being planned, U.S. troops in Mexico would mainly use drone strikes to hit drug labs and cartel members and leaders.”
“Some of the drones that special forces would use require operators to be on the ground to use them effectively and safely, the officials said,” NBC reported.
In April, citing information from six current and former U.S. military, law enforcement and intelligence officials with purported knowledge of U.S. security discussions, NBC reported that the Trump administration was considering carrying out drone strikes on cartels in Mexico.
Seven months later, that has not occurred, but the U.S. government has shown it is willing to use its vast military force against cartels at sea. Trump said last month that “the land is going to be next.”
In 2025, the CIA has already conducted covert drone missions to spy on cartels and hunt for labs where fentanyl and other drugs are produced. The Mexican government said that it requested and approved those missions.
Before he returned to the White House in January, Trump said he was “absolutely” prepared to launch United States military strikes against Mexican cartels if large quantities of drugs continued to flow into the U.S. from Mexico. He has praised Sheinbaum, describing her as “a very wonderful woman,” but has also asserted on repeated occasions that Mexico is run by cartels.
When he was asked on the first day of his second term whether he would consider “ordering U.S. special forces into Mexico” to “take out” cartels, the U.S. president said it “could happen.”
Less than a month later, the U.S. government designated six Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as foreign terrorist organizations.
In August, Sheinbaum said that an executive order signed by Trump directing the Pentagon to target foreign drug cartels did not pose a risk of invasion to Mexico.
“The United States is not going to send its military into Mexico. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion. That’s ruled out … because, in addition to what we’ve stated in all our conversations, it’s not allowed, nor is it part of any agreement,” she said.
With reports from NBC News
