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• Download the full report PDF here.

Executive Summary

On February 27, 2025, Win Without War Education Fund organized the tabletop exercise “What happens if Trump bombs Mexico?” The exercise highlighted for Congress the risks of taking military action against cartels in Mexico—a policy repeatedly threatened by the Trump administration. Experts representing major regional actors played through the aftermath of a fictional U.S. drone strike in Mexico, finding:

• Strikes did not reduce the quantity of fentanyl reaching American communities in the long term. In response to raids, cartels innovated production and smuggling techniques, shifted fentanyl labs to other regions of Mexico, and pursued production in the United States and Canada. Escalating cartel wars also incentivized higher production.
• Military strikes weakened some cartels, but empowered rivals, sparked internecine conflicts, and spread violence across Mexico. Cartels fought over territory and turned their sights on both the Mexican government and U.S.-owned businesses in Mexico to deter a larger U.S.-Mexican campaign against them. They also exploited the economic crisis sparked by the deteriorating U.S.-Mexico relationship to build influence in rural areas as service providers.
• Trade war accompanied military escalation, plunging Mexico into a recession and devastating U.S. auto manufacturers and other trade-dependent industries. In the U.S., trade disruptions drove up the prices of consumer goods and disproportionately harmed workers in manufacturing hubs in the Rust Belt and border states.
• The Trump administration used its “war on cartels” to justify a crackdown on civil liberties at home. It cited Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations for cartels to accuse antiwar activists of support for terrorism and sent ICE to break up protests.
• The Mexican people were ultimately the greatest victims. Subject to escalating violence, displacement, and an economy in freefall, Mexicans bore the brunt of this destabilizing military operation.
• Mexico threatened to end cooperation on immigration enforcement. To bring the U.S. to the negotiating table, Mexico threatened to reduce efforts to manage migration flows to the U.S. border.
• Future U.S.-Mexico relations were hampered by distrust and performative cooperation. Mexican officials kept U.S. counterparts at an arm’s length, and U.S. officials focused more on securing public wins for Trump than enacting a meaningful long-term, cooperative strategy to address drug trafficking.

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Background

The threat of U.S. military action in Mexico is real.

The use of military force against Mexican cartels has been elevated from President Donald Trump’s musings during his first term, when he suggested firing missiles at fentanyl labs but was ignored by his staff, to a mainstream policy option seriously debated by the White House during his second.

In January 2023, Republican Members of Congress introduced legislation for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against cartels. One of the cosponsors of that legislation, Mike Waltz, was later appointed as Trump’s National Security Advisor. Trump also seized on “war on cartels” rhetoric during his 2024 campaign, and since his election that rhetoric has escalated and has begun to translate into policy.¹

In the weeks leading up to the February 2025 TTX, a “road to war” scenario began to unfold in real life. On February 8, a Republican Senator introduced the Jalisco Cartel Neutralization Act, intended to pressure the Department of Defense to kill or capture leaders of that cartel.² On February 18, The New York Times revealed that the Trump administration had increased unmanned surveillance flights over Mexico—in coordination with the Mexican government—as well as manned flights outside of Mexican airspace along Mexico’s west coast and border.³

The next day, the State Department designated several cartels, mostly based in Mexico, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), an act that provides no legal basis for military action but is likely understood by the Trump administration as a precursor for operations, as evidenced by Elon Musk’s immediate response that “that means they’re eligible for drone strikes.”^{4, 5}

On the day of the exercise itself, The New York Times reported, “Trump officials are embroiled in a debate over whether to carry out military strikes against Mexican drug cartels,” and a week later President Trump announced “It’s time for America to wage war on the cartels, which we are doing” during his address to Congress.^6,7

Introduction to The Tabletop Exercise

This report details the findings of the February 27, 2025 tabletop exercise (TTX), “What Happens if Trump Bombs Mexico?,” organized by the Win Without War Education Fund (WWWEF), held at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., and jointly developed and facilitated with Monks Hood Media, LLC. This “anti-wargame” gathered American and Mexican experts from government, think tanks, academia, and labor in front of an audience of Congressional staff to illuminate the far-reaching consequences of the Trump administration’s threats to use military action against cartels in Mexico.

This exercise was designed to help Congress understand the following:

• Threats from the Trump administration to use force against cartels in Mexico deserve to be taken seriously.
• The consequences for security, the economy, civil rights, the drug trade, and the welfare of working people in both Mexico and the United States, including Members’ own constituents.

Why a tabletop exercise?

Analytic games, also called professional games or wargames, provide fresh insight into complex problems with multiple actors and interconnected variables.

Involving multiple experts working at cross-purposes ensures analysis is not limited by the assumptions and conventions of one person, one professional field, or one nationality and—perhaps most importantly—can reveal unexpected outcomes and consequences.

Most wargames for beltway audiences, including games held for Congress, focus on finding the best way to defeat an adversary, often through military force. WWWEF deliberately called this event a tabletop exercise (TTX) to avoid the assumption that it was even possible to “win” through force, and instead encouraged the players to focus on faithfully and realistically simulating their assigned roles.

Objectives

The focus of this exercise was to explore the results, intended and otherwise, of a unilateral U.S. strike on Mexican cartels. WWWEF broke down the open-ended question of “what could happen?” into more specific questions that the exercise could be designed to answer. Because Congress was the intended audience, the questions are weighted toward the perspective and interests of Members of Congress and their constituencies. During the exercise, players were instructed to refer to these questions to keep them focused on strategic-level actions and outcomes.

Exercise focus questions

• How would a unilateral U.S. military strike on Mexican cartels affect the following factors or phenomena:
  • Fentanyl trafficking?
  • Migration?
  • Cartels’ influence in Mexico?
  • The safety, prosperity, and civil rights of people in Mexico and the United States?
  • The U.S. and Mexican economies?
  • U.S.-Mexico relations?
• If threatened, what leverage can the Mexican government use against the United States?
• From the perspective of the Trump administration, how would a strike on cartels impact its stated Mexico policy goals for trade, border security, and cartel violence?

Strategic scope

The level of gameplay for the exercise was strategic, with players instructed to focus on national-level policies, trends, and effects. However, teams were also in control of all relevant subnational actors, such as state governments or local gangs, and could attribute actions to them as long as they were intended to have a strategic effect, e.g. a local cartel assassinating a senior Mexican federal official.

The Exercise

The TTX employed a turn-based structure, actively facilitated by the Control Cell and designed to drive frequent decisions and judgements from players to achieve the following objectives:

• Answering the exercise focus questions about the consequences of a U.S. strike in Mexico.
• Educating the in-person audience by demonstrating cycles of cause and effect within the limited timeframe of the exercise.

Scenario

A scenario slide briefed to players at the start of the exercise.

In the fictional “road to war” scenario briefed to players, the murder of American college students on spring break in Mexico sparked speculation on social media that cartels were to blame. Demands for retribution spread online, in the media, and within Congress. Eventually, President Trump launched limited CIA drone strikes, which killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and destroyed a Sinaloa Cartel fentanyl lab, also killing several civilians including women and children.⁸

With the exception of the above minimally fictionalized “road to war” narrative, the exercise scenario was based entirely on the real-world political, economic, and diplomatic situation as of February 27, 2025, the TTX execution date.

As of late February, President Sheinbaum had already adopted a more aggressive strategy against cartels than the conciliatory “hugs, not bullets” policy of her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Some operations were likely planned in response to real or anticipated pressure from the Trump administration, such as the large fentanyl bust right before February 1 tariffs were supposed to take effect.⁹ However, other moves like the large Mexican military deployment in December to Sinaloa, where a cartel civil war has been raging since September, reflected Mexican security concerns.

Since a peak in Summer of 2024, U.S. fentanyl seizures at the border had steadily decreased, though total seizures of all drugs appear consistent with previous years.¹⁰

Sheinbaum had so far managed to publicly stand up to Trump while still promising deeper security cooperation, but by February 27 Trump was once again vowing to impose tariffs the following week.

Participants

The TTX involved nine players from the United States and Mexico with backgrounds in government, academia, and labor, including:

• Department of Defense (former)
• Office of the United States Trade Representative (former)
• Department of State (former)
• Central Intelligence Agency (former)
• Mexico’s Center for Investigation and National Security (former)
• U.S. Labor Organizing
• Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University
• The Institute for Policy Studies

The Control Cell was composed of WWWEF staff and a game designer with 20 years’ analytic gaming experience from Monk’s Head Media, LLC.

TTX Teams

Planners chose which regional actors to include in the TTX based on who would be needed to answer the exercise focus questions, which addressed the security, economic, and social consequences of a U.S. strike in Mexico. Teams for the cartels and U.S. and Mexican governments were clearly needed to understand the security situation and high-level policy repercussions. In anticipation of some form of trade disruption during the TTX, planners added the industry/labor team to simulate the pressure that both businesses and workers would exert on governments in both countries during a trade war. Finally, a civil society team was added to reflect the concerns of ordinary Mexicans, who would likely be the most impacted by any security or economic developments, and to ensure that the human costs of the policies discussed would not be ignored.

Players were assigned teams representing major regional actors and all related subordinate entities, even if they might have opposing goals. For example, the cartel team represented competing Mexican cartels, and the U.S. government team represented the administration, Congress, and local governments.

Team U.S. Government: Represented all elements and levels of American government, including state and local governments.

• Starting goals: Secure public wins for the Trump administration on cartels, fentanyl, and border security.

Team Government of Mexico: Represented all elements and levels of Mexican government, including state and local governments.

• Starting goals: Address cartel violence and avoid further escalation from the Trump administration without sacrificing Mexico’s sovereignty.

Team Cartel: Represented all criminal organizations based in Mexico, including both local and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).

• Starting goals: Maintain sources of revenue with minimal disruption, exploit opportunities created by U.S. or Mexican operations against rival cartels, avoid major confrontations with either government unless survival is at stake.

Mexican cartel behavior

The cartel team had the difficult task of representing a countless number of independent and sometimes competing criminal organizations. The term “cartel” today in Mexico is a simplification that refers more often than not to a loosely affiliated network of locally oriented gangs—not hierarchical, organized mafias—with some notable exceptions like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). When the cartel team described reactions from cartels in general or even specific cartels like CJNG or Sinaloa, it was understood to denote changes in behavior by some cartels or some members of some cartels, and not necessarily unified regional or national action.

Team Mexican Civil Society: Represented civil society, public sentiment, displaced persons, and migrants.

• Starting goals: Lobby the Mexican government to take working people’s needs into account while formulating security policy, and cooperate with any actor able to help meet people’s basic needs.

Team Industry/Labor: Represented U.S. and Mexican manufacturing, agriculture, and other industries dependent on cross-border trade, plus labor.

• Starting goals:
  • Industry: Maintain a predictable, stable trade relationship between U.S. and Mexico.
  • Labor: Keep U.S. manufacturing open and protect workers’ rights.

Control Cell: Responsible for facilitating gameplay, adjudicating outcomes of player actions, and resolving disputes.

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Key Observations

Starting game map depicting U.S. drone strikes, preexisting elevated cartel violence, areas of influence for CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel, concentrations of migrants in southern Mexico, and major U.S.-Mexico border crossings.

The TTX highlighted numerous risks and unforeseen consequences associated with a U.S. operation against cartels. Many outcomes and decisions during the exercise surprised planners and players alike. Real-world developments in the month following the TTX have supported many of the exercise’s outcomes but challenged others.

The first victims of American escalation in Mexico were working Mexicans…

In the TTX, people in Mexico bore the brunt of the consequences following U.S. strikes. First as collateral victims of the initial drone strikes, then as victims of escalating inter and intra-cartel violence and clashes between cartels and Mexican federal forces. Growing violence forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, multiplying Mexico’s internally displaced persons, who already number in the hundreds of thousands.¹¹ Mexicans not directly affected by violence were still victims of the economic crisis brought on by blanket U.S. tariffs. Civil society was unable to meet the ballooning needs of working people, especially in rural areas, or to compel the Mexican government to do so. Deteriorating economic and security conditions compelled many Mexicans to migrate to the United States, exposing them to further harm at the hands of cartel-affiliated smugglers and U.S. border authorities.

…but working Americans weren’t spared

The TTX highlighted that disruptions to trade with Mexico would drive up the prices of consumer goods nationally and disproportionately harm workers in manufacturing hubs in border states and the Rust Belt. Without inputs from Mexico’s maquiladoras, much of the U.S. auto industry functionally shut down.

Hot war led to trade war

Much of the social and economic disruption in the TTX originated with the U.S. team’s decision to pressure Mexico with high blanket tariffs and its subsequent threat to close the border. Border closures were especially alarming to the U.S. agricultural sector, which would suffer losses from even a brief closure as perishable exports rotted on the north side of the border. Though the U.S. team initiated punitive trade measures first in the TTX, these policy tools are also available to the Mexican government, even if its economy is more vulnerable to disruptions in bilateral trade.

The real-life Sheinbaum administration has promised repeatedly to respond in kind to any U.S. tariffs, and could plausibly also impose them first in response to a U.S. attack on Mexican soil—though if Trump welcomes tariffs as an end in themselves, it would call the effectiveness of this strategy into question.

Trump was willing to sacrifice U.S. industry to dominate Mexico

One surprise during the TTX was the U.S. team’s willingness to jeopardize the U.S. economy, and American manufacturing in particular, in service of its plan to compel the Mexican government to strike cartels on command. Business leaders and labor unions continually lobbied the Trump administration, first to restore trade with Mexico, and later for subsidies to help them weather the trade war, but were rebuffed. The Trump administration instead took the opportunity to try to encourage manufacturers to move production out of Mexico and back to the United States. Uncertainty around the border and tariffs, plus an increasingly hostile attitude in Mexico toward Americans and American companies, did drive some companies to consider moving out of Mexico, but because onshoring in the United States was impossible without substantial subsidies, businesses instead explored production in third countries.

In the weeks following the TTX, real-life Trump administration officials repeatedly signaled that they are comfortable with inducing a recession in pursuit of reshoring policies, and Trump himself warned automakers to “buckle up” for more tariffs, suggesting the trade policies explored in the TTX were not unrealistic.^{12, 13}

Bullying poisoned the U.S.-Mexico relationship

After the U.S. strikes, Mexico expelled all American law enforcement and military personnel, and eventually the U.S. ambassador, suspending cooperation on security, drugs, and most other shared issues for months as the U.S. team piled on threats to try to get Mexico to attack cartels on command. The Mexico team refused this, but by the end of the exercise agreed—under some duress—to restore full diplomatic relations and resume security cooperation.

However, the longstanding cooperative bilateral relationship had fundamentally changed into a transactional one where Mexico made the minimum contributions required to satisfy the Trump administration, and substantive cooperation on most issues was unlikely because of Mexican officials’ distrust for their American counterparts.

The United States held most of the cards, but Mexico retained its own leverage: Immigration policy

At times, the Mexico team took a surprisingly conciliatory approach, continually attempting to reestablish security cooperation and eventually agreeing to step up anti-cartel operations even as the U.S. team made new threats. However, they were very much mirroring some of the real-life Sheinbaum administration’s responses to U.S. pressure. Since Trump’s 2024 election, Mexico has intensified operations against the Sinaloa cartel and made big fentanyl busts, at least in part to placate Trump.¹⁴

But Mexico also has its own sources of leverage. Under agreements with Trump during his first term, and then Biden, Mexico has already stepped up immigration enforcement, deploying thousands of national guard troops to its northern and southern borders and apprehending over 700,000 migrants in 2024.¹⁵ In the TTX, Mexican border control was already strained as violence and economic hardship spurred an uptick in migration, and the federal government redeployed national guard troops away from the border to tamp down on cartels.

During a drawn-out impasse in negotiations, the Mexico team got the U.S. team’s attention and brought it back to the negotiating table by hinting it was willing to suspend interdictions.

This is a pressure point for the real-world Trump administration, too. On the day of the TTX, The New York Times reported that Trump Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller was worried that if the U.S. unilaterally attacked cartels in Mexico, Sheinbaum would stop cooperating on immigration policy.¹⁶

Mexico started hedging its bets

As military and economic threats from the U.S. team mounted, the Mexican government and Mexican businesses began to search for more reliable partners further afield. Businesses courted more investments from Europe and Asia to compensate for erratic U.S. trade policy, which already threatened to pull some U.S. businesses out of Mexico.

The Sheinbaum administration team considered a range of entreaties from China, including signing a refueling agreement for the Chinese navy, to demonstrate its willingness to reduce dependency on the United States.

Killing drug traffickers did not kill the drug trade

U.S. drone strikes and Mexican raids under U.S. pressure successfully killed cartel kingpins, weakened specific cartels, and destroyed drug labs and stockpiles, but also empowered rival cartels, risked runaway violence, and did not have a definitive effect on total fentanyl reaching the U.S. or overall organized criminal activity in Mexico.

Taking out kingpins splintered some cartels into competing gangs and invited attacks from rivals, intensifying cartel-on-cartel violence throughout Mexico. In the short term, raids on fentanyl production drove up prices, benefitting other cartels that produce or smuggle fentanyl. Cartels whose own supplies were destroyed stepped up extortion and kidnappings to make up for lost revenue. Raids encouraged innovative smuggling and production techniques, pushed fentanyl production to new regions of Mexico, and convinced some cartels to expand production in Canada or within the United States. Cartels also eventually further increased overall fentanyl production to fund their escalating wars against each other and the Mexican government.

U.S. fentanyl overdose deaths have already decreased by over 25% since their peak in June 2023, likely a result of improved U.S. addiction and overdose treatment, cooperation with China to restrict chemical precursors, and the introduction of substitute illicit narcotics into the U.S. market. The cutoff for the data showing a decline in deaths is September 2024, making it too soon to tell what impact Trump or Sheinbaum’s policies have had, if any.¹⁷

Over the past several months, real-world fentanyl seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border have steadily decreased, which could be a result of the real-world Sheinbaum administration’s campaign, or any combination of the other developments mentioned above. It remains to be seen whether numbers will go back up once cartels adapt to stepped up military and law enforcement pressure. Lower seizures could also indicate that production has already shifted north, or smuggling techniques have grown more sophisticated.

Cartel violence was difficult to put back in the bottle

The Mexican government team maintained lines of communication with the cartel team but struggled to convince them that new anti-cartel operations were aimed at placating the Trump administration and not totally eliminating cartels. Even after the Trump and Sheinbaum governments reached a tense detente and the threat of drone strikes and large-scale raids had passed, some cartels continued to attack U.S. businesses and Mexican government officials, highlighting the difficulty of reestablishing a pax narcótica once broken.

Cartels were willing to escalate within Mexico, including against Americans, but reluctant to bring political violence across the border

The cartel team assessed that the threat of a sustained U.S.-Mexico military campaign would convince some cartels to band together to strike Mexican and U.S. government-associated targets within Mexico in an attempt to establish deterrence.

Cartels assassinated several senior Mexican officials and one American businessman in Mexico in response to what they perceived as a credible threat from the U.S. and Mexican governments. However, they judged that attacks within the United States would be unacceptably costly, provoking an overwhelming response that would not only target cartels in Mexico but also disrupt drug sales in the United States. Unaware of the cartel team’s calculus, the U.S. team remained worried about cartel attacks on U.S. soil and identified them as a red line that would trigger American ground raids in Mexico.

Crises increased some cartels’ influence

The Mexican government’s inability to provide for citizens during the tariff-induced economic crisis forced more Mexicans in poor and rural communities to turn to cartels for assistance, further embedding the cartels’ role in Mexican society as service providers. Some cartels’ limited but comparably aggressive stance against the United States allowed them to claim to be a more reliable defender of Mexican sovereignty than the government, which was seen as capitulating to Trump.

A “war on cartels” justified violations of civil liberties at home

The U.S. team identified that they could use the cartel Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation to paint protestors demonstrating against the Mexico strikes or tariffs as terror supporters. In the TTX, the Trump administration used ICE agents to break up protests organized by labor unions and the Mexican diaspora community, and used immigration law to justify detentions, even when protestors were U.S. citizens or Legal Permanent Residents. Similar scenarios have manifested in real life in the weeks following the exercise, as the Trump administration has used ICE to detain student visa and green card holders on the pretense that they are terror supporters for participating in pro-Palestinian campus protests and other advocacy.

The U.S. team also realized they could use the FTO designation to invoke terrorist material support laws to go after anyone who had—even unwittingly—patronized a business connected to cartel members. In the most extreme interpretation, this could apply to someone who purchased avocados from a Mexican company extorted by cartels.

Final game map depicting U.S. states that suffered high unemployment and factory closures (highlighted in yellow), labor protests in several U.S. and Mexican states, twice as many Mexican states experiencing elevated cartel violence, and several political assassinations in Mexico.

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Recommendations

The TTX showed Congress the far-reaching risks of an American attack on Mexican soil, including economic crises, breaches of civil liberties, runaway violence, and a diplomatic rupture.

Members who hope to avoid these consequences should:

Reassert war powers and vote against authorizing offensive action in Mexico.

In the TTX, the Trump administration repeatedly bypassed Congress to launch drone strikes into Mexico, and did not bother to consult Congress during its deliberations about launching a ground operation. Members should oppose any legislation to authorize such actions and strongly contest any presidential invocation of Article II authorities to bypass Congress.

Conduct assertive oversight of CIA drone operations.

Team Trump administration used the CIA to launch the opening salvo because CIA drones are already running surveillance flights over Mexico, and Title 50 strikes could be perceived as a quicker option that would circumvent oversight and preempt critics. Members should press for frequent updates and as much unclassified transparency as possible on CIA drone operations over Mexico.

Aggressively defend civil liberties…

Rhetoric of a war on cartels, now designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), was exploited in the TTX to break up demonstrations and detain protestors, mirroring the arguments the real-life Trump administration has used to detain student activists in the weeks following the exercise. Members should challenge further violations of due process and stand in solidarity with detainees—calling for their release, using oversight powers to monitor the conditions of their detention, and coordinating with their families and legal teams—while pursuing accountability for the agencies and persons responsible.

…and refine material support of terrorism laws.

The U.S. team used the real-life Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of Mexican cartels to expand intimidation of protestors and dissidents. Cartels extort a wide range of industries in Mexico, even avocado and tortilla production; a politicized Department of Justice could easily connect many Americans to a purchase that theoretically provided material support to cartels. Members should amend existing material support laws to ensure they cannot be weaponized against people with no witting connection to FTO-designated groups.¹⁸

Partner with businesses and labor.

The industry and labor team in the TTX was a strong voice for moderation as a trade war and escalating violence in Mexico disrupted supply chains, closed factories, and threatened to upend U.S. agriculture. Members should begin discussing this risk with labor and private sector leaders in their districts and states to understand the costs to livelihoods and businesses if U.S. military action disrupts cross-border trade.

Opportunities for future analysis.

A valuable sequel to this event, which focused on the dangers of one specific strategy, would be a solutions-oriented TTX that explores strategies to address the shared challenges plaguing the United States and Mexico. The U.S. and Mexico teams could cooperate from the start to develop a strategy that reduces American demand for fentanyl and other drugs, obstructs the “iron river” of American firearms to Mexico, target drivers of migration in the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America, incorporates a rational, humane immigration policy, and disrupts cartels without generating a runaway cycle of violence.

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Appendix

Exercise Structure

The exercise ran for three turns that represented increasing time horizons. During the first turn, participants played out events during the first week following the U.S. attack. The second turn represented one month, and the third turn six months. Each turn followed a phased discussion, negotiation, action/adjudication structure, which gave teams allotted time to plan their policies internally, then negotiate with other teams, and finally announce their policy actions. During the action/adjudication phase, the Control Cell called on teams to hear their actions and reactions, and then determined outcomes, often in consultation with the players’ professional expertise.

The Control Cell actively moderated throughout the exercise to ensure players focused on strategic level actions and occasionally simulated the behavior of actors not represented by a team, like China. The Control Cell also maintained a live game map that marked major events.

Live game map with icons for major events. U.S. states suffering high unemployment or loss of revenue are highlighted in yellow.

Data capture

Each team had a dedicated notetaker tasked with recording all internal deliberations, inter-team negotiations, and external policy actions. Additionally, at the conclusion of the exercise, the Control Cell led a discussion to identify key takeaways from the players’ perspective.

 

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Notes

1 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/trump-mexico-cartels-republican.html

2 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3782

3 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/us/politics/cia-drone-flights-mexico.html

4 https://www.justsecurity.org/107850/us-military-mexico-illegal/

5 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892288041894465657

6 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/world/americas/mexico-trump-cartels-washington.html

7 https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/03/remarks-by-president-trump-in-joint-address-to-congress/

8 TTX planners were initially concerned this scenario might be seen as unrealistic and that the murder of college students would not actually be sufficient casus belli for Trump to launch drone strikes. However, on the day of the exercise, The New York Times reported, “Trump officials are embroiled in a debate over whether to carry out military strikes against Mexican drug cartels” without needing any new casus belli at all.

9 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-fentanyl-seizure-trump-tariff/

10 https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics

11 https://reliefweb.int/report/mexico/unhcr-mexico-internally-displaced-people-idps-fact-sheet-august-2024.

12 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/business/economy/trump-recession-tariffs-inflation.html

13 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/trump-tariffs-auto-industry-corporate-executives.html

14 https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-president-may-be-toughening-fight-with-drug-cartels-2024-12-24/

15 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/14/mexico-migrant-border-merry-go-round/

16 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/world/americas/mexico-trump-cartels-washington.html

17 https://www.npr.org/2025/03/24/nx-s1-5328157/fentanyl-overdose-death-drugs

18 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/23/mexico-cartels-tortilla-exortion-crime/

 

Download the full report PDF here.