Trump Administration Ramps Up Fight Against Cartels in Skies Above Mexico

The Trump administration might just be getting off the ground, but it’s already ramping up its efforts in the air when it comes to securing the southern border.

A campaign using Central Intelligence Agency drones to seek out fentanyl production in Mexican territory — begun during the Biden administration — has picked up steam under President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

And it could well be just the beginning.

According to the Times, quoting an unnamed U.S. official, the drone flights go “well into sovereign Mexico.”

The flights, not publicly disclosed previously, are intended to find fentanyl labs and are not authorized for lethal action, according to the Times.

“For now, C.I.A. officers in Mexico pass information collected by the drones to Mexican officials,” the newspaper reported.

“However, during the Biden administration, the Mexican government was slow to take action against labs identified by the Americans, although it did use the information to make arrests, according to two of the officials,” the Times noted.

In its own piece Tuesday, CNN reported the Reaper drone flights, along with an expected move by Trump this week to designate certain drug cartels as “terrorist organizations,” serve to “underscore how the Trump administration is working to shift a broad range of counterterrorism authorities and resources to counter-cartel work along the US-Mexico border and inside Mexico itself.”

New: The CIA has been covertly flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels, current and former officials familiar with the matter told CNN, part of Trump’s shift to treat cartels like terror orgs. From @NatashaBertrand @ZcohenCNN and me: https://t.co/p16Fj42VEg

— Katie Bo Lillis (@KatieBoLillis) February 18, 2025

Mexico has been aware of the drone operation, which works by detecting specific chemicals fentanyl labs emit into the air, according to the Times.

During a news conference Tuesday morning, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged the flights, but appeared to downplay their significance.

“It’s part of this little campaign,” she said, according to the Times.

However, the Trump White House has made no secret of its desire for Mexico to do more to crack down on the importation of the deadly drug into the United States.

Among the blitz of executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office, one created a process that would be used to designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

News about the drone program comes after last week’s reports that the U.S. had conducted surveillance flights over international waters of the Gulf of California, between Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and mainland Mexico.

During a Jan. 31 interview with “Fox & Friends,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “all options will be on the table” when it comes to taking on the drug cartels.

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