Trump’s new 'forever war'

When President Donald Trump chose John Bolton as his national security adviser during his first presidency, it was considered an odd choice — as Bolton was a very hawkish neocon, and Trump's views on foreign policy were much closer to the paleoconservative America First ideology of Patrick Buchanan. Trump, often described as an "isolationist," eventually fired Bolton.

Yet Trump has taken a much mor interventionist and imperialistic turning since returning to the White House, from the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to his push to buy Greenland to calling for Canada to become "the 51st state." Trump's critics are worried that he will get the United States into a prolonged war in Iran or order an invasion of Cuba.

But Salon's Heather Digby Parton, in an article published on February 26, cites Mexico as a country likely to be targeted by Trump for a "forever war."

"When Americans talk about 'forever wars,'" Parton explains, "they usually mean the long conflicts in the Middle East: Iraq and Afghanistan. The 20 years the U.S. spent enmeshed in those countries were painful and expensive, and people are still wondering what they ultimately accomplished. George W. Bush's administration did manage to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, and Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, was killed on Barack Obama's watch. But the underlying issues that propelled those wars were never fully resolved. It's only a matter of time before they bubble up again."

Parton continues, "But half a century ago, another forever war was officially declared, and it continues unabated: the so-called War On Drugs. The name is not a figure of speech or a metaphor. It's what the warmonger types like to call a 'kinetic action,' meaning 'physical force, violence, or destructive energy.'"

Trump, according to Parton, has been "obsessed with Mexico" ever since he launched his 2016 presidential campaign.

"In August 2025, following his return to office, Rolling Stone reported that Trump was considering sending troops into Mexico but leaned toward a 'soft invasion in which American special operations would be sent covertly to assassinate cartel leaders,'" Parton notes. "The Mexican government was not amused by these revelations, and reacted to these threats by reminding the U.S. that Mexico is a sovereign country. But behind the scenes, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has apparently realized that the only way to stop Trump from doing this would be to take such action themselves."

On Sunday, February 22, Mexican authorities killed 59-year-old Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, AKA El Mencho — an infamous narcotraficante and leader of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, abbreviated CJNG in Spanish). El Mencho's supporters and allies responded with acts of violence all over Mexico, and tourists were advised to shelter in place.

"But Trump is apparently unimpressed with the operation that resulted in the killing of the country's most powerful drug kingpin," Parton observes. "On Sunday, he posted on Truth Social that 'Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs!' Messages like these make it pretty clear that he's itching to send in the American military for another Venezuela-style triumph. There are currently 1.6 million Americans living in Mexico, and it's estimated that over 40 million Americans visit the country each year. All it will take is one incident involving any of them, and he will almost certainly pull the trigger. It's a very dangerous situation."