Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis promised Wednesday to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “day one” if he becomes the next president of the United States.
At the GOP presidential candidate debate in Milwaukee, DeSantis agreed without hesitation when asked by the Fox News moderators hosting the event if he would support sending special forces into Mexico.
“The cartels are killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens,” DeSantis said. “We have to reestablish the rule of law and we have to defend our people. The president of the United States has got to use all available powers as commander in chief to protect our country.”
DeSantis expressed concern about the cartels shipping illicit drugs into the U.S., including fentanyl, asking “how many more tens of thousands” of Americans should die.
“So as president would I use force, would I treat them as foreign terrorist organizations?” DeSantis said. “You’re darn right I would.”
DeSantis joins several other Republican presidential candidates, including former President Trump, the front-runner in the race, who have backed the idea of military action to take out the cartels.
On Wednesday night, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he would support limited military action, such as intelligence gathering, against the cartels. But only if Mexico could be looped into the effort.
“Cooperation makes a difference,” Hutchinson said. “We cannot be successful going against the cartel unless we bring in Mexico as a partner. We have to use economic pressure to accomplish that.”
During the debate, former Vice President Mike Pence also backed partnering with the Mexican army to “hunt down and destroy the cartels.”
Experts, however, say any military action could end up backfiring, straining relations with Mexico and other Latin American countries and likely failing to stop a shadowy network of cartel operations.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) sharply criticized the GOP candidates for raising the possibility of military action in Mexico.
“The Republicans cheering for war with Mexico are taking the United States down a dark, dangerous path,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.