Reconnaissance Jet Makes Unprecedented Run Along Mexico Cartel Coast, Hegseth Declares ‘All Options on the Table’

Could President Donald Trump’s administration be preparing a strike against Mexico’s military cartels? Recent activity suggests he might — and that could put Mexico’s government in an awkward and unprecedented situation.

According to a report in military-centric outlet The War Zone earlier this week, a U.S. Air Force surveillance jet flew two missions in the Gulf of California on Monday and Tuesday.

The flights by the RC-135V Rivet Joint — a reconnaissance plane based on the venerable Boeing 707 platform — flew “between Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and the rest of that country, according to online flight tracking data,” the outlet reported.

While the platform itself is old — the Boeing 707 was the first successful jet airliner, after all — the surveillance capabilities of the RC-135 are another matter; it’s one of the most technologically advanced intelligence-gathering planes in the Air Force fleet, making the over-water flight off the coast of one of Mexico’s most cartel heavy areas particularly notable:

Wow, for the first time I have ever seen, a U.S. Air Force RC-135V “Rivet Joint” Signals Intelligence Platform from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, is operating within Mexican Airspace, over the Gulf of California between Baja California Sur, Sonora, and Sinaloa. pic.twitter.com/ucEDSc4Zxj

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 3, 2025

“Despite how relatively narrow the Gulf of California is, there are international waters and airspace above at its center. There are no indications that [the plane] ever entered Mexican national airspace in the course of any of these flights,” the War Zone reported.

The RC-135 has previously been used on counter-narcotics operations, as well — and the flights come after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “[a]ll options will be on the table,” including striking at cartels inside Mexico, during an interview with Fox News last week.

BREAKING: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just confirmed that the United States could now conduct special operations against Mexican cartels now that President Trump has declared them foreign terrorist organizations.

“All options will be on the table.” pic.twitter.com/UhCvRaGRvJ

— George (@BehizyTweets) January 31, 2025

Any U.S. counter-cartel activity in Mexico would be problematic, and not just because the American military is striking within a foreign territory.

Despite ample evidence that the ruling party in Mexico has, at the very least, established a profitable detente with the criminal cartels that plague the nation, newly elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was outraged by what she called “slanderous” allegations the ruling coalition was in bed with the narcobosses.

“We categorically reject the White House’s slander against the Mexican government of having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of intervention in our territory,” Sheinbaum said in a social media statement.

“If such an alliance exists anywhere, it is in the United States armories that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups, as demonstrated by the United States Department of Justice itself in January of this year.”

Rechazamos categóricamente la calumnia que hace la Casa Blanca al Gobierno de México de tener alianzas con organizaciones criminales, así como cualquier intención injerencista en nuestro territorio.

Si en algún lugar existe tal alianza es en las armerías de los Estados Unidos…

— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) February 2, 2025

However, Sheinbaum is the chosen successor of recently departed Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and has taken over the political machinery he built during his term in office.

At the very least, López Obrador’s anti-cartel strategy of “hugs, not bullets” (seriously, that’s what he called it), ended as badly as you might predict from that name and reinforced the notion that Mexico has little control over the criminal element that’s ravaged the country.

Alas, it seems that there were more than just “hugs” from the former president and his government toward the drug bosses: Last February, The New York Times reported U.S. authorities reportedly investigated López Obrador for allegedly taking millions from the cartels and met with their leaders.

“The inquiry, which has not been previously reported, uncovered information pointing to potential links between powerful cartel operatives and Mexican advisers and officials close to the president while he governed the country,” the report noted.

“But the United States never opened a formal investigation into Mr. López Obrador, and the officials involved ultimately shelved the inquiry. They concluded that the U.S. government had little appetite to pursue allegations against the leader of one of America’s top allies, said the three people familiar with the case, who were not authorized to speak publicly.”

The appetites of the Trump administration, however, are significantly different than those of the Biden administration — and if Mexico cannot or will not stop violent cartels from wreaking havoc at home and across the border, the Trump White House apparently plans to curb the capacity of that element to traffic in drugs, human lives, and violence up here.

Whether or not this entails military strikes — or whether that’s a hard bargaining tactic to convince Sheinbaum she’s far safer placating Washington, D.C., than the Sinaloa Cartel — the reconnaissance flights make one thing clear yet again: Trump isn’t just paying lip service to making serious change this time around.

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