DEA faced pushback at White House, Pentagon after urging Mexico strikes

Source: Washington Post

September 19, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDT


Drug Enforcement Administration officials advocated for a series of military strikes in Mexico earlier this year, alarming some in the White House and Pentagon and presaging the fraught debate underway in Washington over the legality of this month’s deadly attacks on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, people familiar with the matter said.

The discussion began in the opening weeks of President Donald Trump’s return to office, after he designated numerous Latin American cartels and criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. DEA officials suggested both targeted killings of cartel leadership in Mexico and attacks on infrastructure there, these people said. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of highly sensitive and private internal deliberations.

The pushback on DEA’s advocacy, which has not been reported previously, illustrates the divisions that have arisen as the Trump administration has taken an aggressive posture toward combating what it says is a major adversary poisoning American citizens. And though DEA’s proposals for Mexico have not been acted upon, this month’s strikes on alleged drug boats from Venezuela show the administration’s determination to unleash deadly force despite internal legal concerns.

DEA’s acting administrator at the time of these early conversations, Derek S. Maltz, told The Washington Post that he is “totally in favor” — and has been since Trump’s first term as president — “of hitting the production labs and command control leaders in Mexico.” A career DEA agent before retiring a decade ago, Maltz was appointed by Trump in January and led the agency until May. Its permanent administrator, Terrance C. Cole, took over in late July.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/19/trump-cartel-strikes-mexico-dea/