Cartels pivot fentanyl trafficking strategy amid Trump crackdown

(NewsNation) — As the Trump administration continues to prioritize cracking down on the movement of drugs across the southern border, Mexican drug cartels have pivoted how they move fentanyl into the United States, often by pairing it with other illicit drugs such as cocaine,

Since early September, the U.S. military has carried out at least a dozen targeted strikes on suspected drug boats. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the latest strike, which officials said killed four suspected narco-terrorists on a boat traveling in the eastern Pacific.

In June, Trump signed the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, which is aimed at lessening the amount of fentanyl entering the United States. The law also toughens penalties for those convicted of trafficking drugs into the U.S.

“We’ll be getting the drug dealers, pushers, and peddlers off our street, and we will not rest until we have ended the drug overdose epidemic,” Trump said at the time. “And it’s been getting a little bit better, but it’s horrible.”

However, fentanyl is now being moved into the U.S. either by being paired with drugs such as cocaine or is being used to lace other narcotics, which cuts down on the chances of users dying from an overdose. (More than 48,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a roundtable on criminal cartels with President Donald Trump in the State Dining Room of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Jesus Romero told NewsNation that after cartels began taking more heat for overdose deaths, officials within those organizations figured out a safer way of moving fentanyl across the border.

“Cocaine is the vehicle to ingest fentanyl,” Romero said.

China is the primary transporter of precursor chemicals into the United States, but drugs are being flown by plane to Mexico. From there, cartel members are sending the same planes to Venezuela to pick up cocaine, which would then be sent to Central America and Mexico by boat.

Mexican officials have partnered with the Trump administration to limit the amount of fentanyl crossing the border. In one enforcement effort, known as Operation Northern Border, nearly 236,000 pounds of drugs were seized, including more than 1,000 pounds of fentanyl. In other federal efforts in places such as Nogales, Arizona, a million pills were seized in September over just one month.

The flow of drugs in that port of entry has slowed by as much as half over the past year. Sources, including Romero, told NewsNation that over the past four years, federal agents were inundated with migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, many of whom were smuggling precursor chemicals into the United States.

That allowed cartel members working in all 50 states to make the drugs inside the country, largely in part due to the amount of chemicals that went undetected, sources said. Drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine were laced with fentanyl, giving the user a better chance of surviving.

But that has led to multiple smugglers being caught in San Diego and Florida, where Customs and Border Protection agents are partnering with other organizations to seize drugs like cocaine that manage to cross the border and into the United States for cartel use.