President Donald Trump said the United States will “start now hitting land” in its campaign against drug cartels, signaling a possible expansion beyond recent maritime operations as he claimed cartels are “running Mexico.”
Trump made the remarks in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Thursday night. “We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico,” Trump said.
Trump did not provide details about what “hitting land” would entail, including whether any action would occur on Mexican territory, or what legal authority the administration would rely on. His comments came after months of U.S. strikes targeting suspected drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
Trump described the potential escalation as a response to U.S. deaths tied to illicit drugs, saying in the interview that cartels were killing “250,000–300,000 people in our country every single year.” However, federal public health data shows a far lower toll from drug overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says preliminary data projects 76,516 overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending in April 2025, a 24.5% decline from the prior year.
🚨 Trump says the US will be conducting land strikes against the cartels. “We are gonna start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico.” pic.twitter.com/63sOf5NWIy
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 9, 2026
Any U.S. military action inside Mexico would likely trigger a diplomatic clash with President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has publicly rejected foreign intervention. “We categorically reject intervention in the internal matters of other countries,” Sheinbaum said Monday, according to Al Jazeera. “It is necessary to reaffirm that, in Mexico, the people rule and that we are a free and sovereign country,” she added. “Cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no.”
Trump has raised the issue of using U.S. forces against cartels in Mexico in recent days. Channel News Asia reported that Trump said Sunday he was pressing Sheinbaum to let him send U.S. troops to take on cartels, an offer he said she had rejected.
Trump’s latest comments also followed the U.S. operation in Venezuela last weekend that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a mission that sent shockwaves across Latin America, and the president named other potential targets. U.S. controversial strikes on alleged drug boats have killed more than 100 people since September and Trump claimed toHannity the administration had “knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water,” and would now shift attention to land-based operations “with regard to the cartels.”
Mexican officials have responded to Trump’s recent rhetoric by emphasizing national sovereignty and warning against unilateral action. Sheinbaum has said U.S. military action on Mexican territory would cross a red line, even as Mexico continues security cooperation with the United States on migration and law enforcement matters.
But while the strikes in international waters already set off a legal debate, Trump’s military campaign in Venezuela has led some opponents to call for his third impeachment. Even the Republican-majority Senate passed a war powers resolution on Thursday to block further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, but it is unlikely to pass in the GOP-majority House, and obviously won’t be signed into law by Trump.
The backlash has not slowed down Trump’s military ambitions, with Cuba and Mexico likely next. Trump has made it clear he feels that “something’s going to have to be done” in Mexico with the country’s drug problem.
