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Opinion: Trump Doesn’t Want to Stop Fentanyl—He Wants Mexican Slave Labor

Like in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the story being sold is terrorism and security, but the machinery being built points to something deeper: keeping Mexico in its place. Washington is not afraid of fentanyl. It is afraid of a Mexico that builds its own economy, reforms its own judiciary, and refuses to play second fiddle.

10:46 AM PDT on September 2, 2025

The Mexican flag flying next to two palm trees

Photo by Erick Galindo for L.A. TACO.

The United States is gearing up for something reckless: a war on Mexico, packaged by Trump and MAGA as a crusade against fentanyl and the so-called “terrorist” cartels. 

No one here is defending drug trafficking or organized crime—but that’s not what this is really about.

So why is the United States really preparing to attack Mexico and stop any reforms? Two words: power and labor.