Elon Musk suggested that the new FTO designations of Mexican drug cartels means using drones to attack the drug cartels on Wednesday. The tech businessman has been at the center of controversy recently due to his strong role within Donald Trump’s government as part of DOGE.
Some current and former officials say designating cartels as terrorist groups could potentially lay the groundwork for direct US strikes against the cartels and their drug labs in Mexico.
The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone can be flown unarmed or equipped to strike targets.
Yesterday, CNN reported that the CIA had been using MQ-9 Reaper drones (also known as Predator B drones) to track drug cartel and border activity. US surveillance flights along the border and over international waters near the Gulf of California have stepped up recently.
Now, according to various officials, the CIA has been covertly flying these drones over Mexican airspace to spy on fentanyl labs and likely support Mexican operations against cartel targets. The notifications made no mention of Mexican partners, the source said.
The CIA has flown surveillance drones to hunt cartels inside Mexico before, according to a former and a current US official, under at least one small program that partnered with Mexican authorities.
These drones are reported to be unarmed but can easily be equipped with striking munitions. Currently, the same MQ-9 drones are utilized in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and other regions for strikes on designated terrorists and terrorist sites.
CIA & Mexico Comment
The CIA declined to comment specifically about the drone missions. But a spokesperson said that broadly “countering drug cartels in Mexico and regionally is a priority for CIA as a part of the Trump Administration’s broader efforts to end the grave threat from narco-trafficking. Director [John] Ratcliffe is determined to put CIA’s unique expertise to work against this multifaceted challenge.”
The revelation that the CIA is flying drone missions over Mexico comes amid heightened tensions between the US and Mexican governments. The Mexican government is already fielding questions about why American military spy planes have flown missions near the border in recent weeks.
In response to CNN’s reporting about the dramatic uptick in military spy planes flying near Mexico, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and other senior Mexican officials have emphasized in recent days the importance of sovereignty and that those spy plane flights are occurring in international airspace and over US territory.
Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla said that he was not previously aware of those spy plane flights.
“We cannot rule out espionage because we do not know exactly what was done,” Trevilla said last week. “However, they did not violate national airspace.”
MQ-9 Drones in Mexican Airspace
The CIA’s MQ-9 missions, however, are being flown inside Mexican airspace. The Mexican government did not respond to requests for comment.
On Friday, in response to a question about increased US overflights in international airspace, Sheinbaum said, “The important thing here, I think, in the declaration, which is what we have always proposed, is that they share information with the Government of Mexico.”
Under longstanding bilateral agreements, the DEA and some other law enforcement agencies also routinely fly aircraft in Mexican airspace in cooperation with the Mexican government.
The CIA does not publicly acknowledge the existence of its drone program, though Reaper drones can sometimes be heard from the ground, some sources noted.
The CIA drone flights, combined with the expected cartel designations, 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.
Planning for that shift started even before Trump took office. A 30-page Trump transition planning document titled “2025 Agency Action Plan,” reviewed by CNN, outlined the Trump administration’s early priorities for the intelligence community to “reprogram [counterterrorism] resources.”
“Treat counter-drug cartel work as a form of counter-terrorism and use those authorities and unique resources appropriately, including by moving resources from other regions if necessary,” the document directed.
