Although geographically distant, the war launched by Israel and the U.S. on February 28 against Iraq has led to ripple effects across the global economy. Although not involved in the conflict and distant economically and geographically from the conflict zone, México now faces a unique set of economic and security considerations if the conflict lasts longer than the next couple of months.
Tethered to the potential prolonged conflict in the Middle East is the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure on Latin American countries to engage drug cartels militarily. On March 7, 2026, Donald Trump met with the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago to encourage them to launch military strikes against the drug cartels in their countries.
During the so-called “Shield of the Americas” summit, Trump told the attending leaders that “the only way to defat these [drug cartels] enemies is by unleashing the power of our militaries.” Only days after the U.S. began military operations against Iran, on March 3rd, the Ecuadorian and U.S. militaries launched a joint operation against suspected drug cartel facilities in Ecuador, according to a press release from the U.S. Southern Command. It is not yet clear what the targets were and if there were any casualties. What is known is that U.S. military personnel participated in training Ecuadorian troops and in direct operations against the cartel targets.
Although the Trump administration has been pressuring the government of Claudia Sheinbaum to allow direct U.S. military operations against the drug cartels in México, she has rebuffed the demand. Nonetheless, under longstanding binational agreements to share intelligence information between both governments, the U.S. provided Mexican forces intelligence for the February 22 military operation against Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) leader Nemesio Rubén Osegura Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”. The operation to capture the cartel leader ended in his death.
Although not articulated, the operation against El Mencho was likely an attempt to appease the Trump administration as it continues to pressure México with direct U.S. military action against the drug cartels. The summit on March 7, and the U.S.-Ecuadorian joint operation added to the pressure for México.
Behind the headline grabbing Iran conflict, the death of El Mencho and a recent summit with right-wing Latin American leaders lies two American military doctrines, a cornerstone and an emerging one – standoff warfare and leadership decapitation.
Standoff Warfare
The U.S. military action against Iran and to a lesser degree the military action to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife in January follows a cornerstone of American military doctrine – strategic standoff warfare.
Standoff warfare is the strategy of using long-range precision-guided munitions to destroy targets while minimizing the dangers to military personnel and assets. Standoff warfare allows a country to project power and disrupt the enemy’s military capacity while protecting military assets.
The fundamental problem for standoff warfare is the cost of the munitions and their inability to achieve decisive victory in the conflict without deploying military forces on the ground.
The Trump administration has been unclear about its goal with Iran. The goal has shifted between keeping Iran from achieving a nuclear capacity to eliminating Iran’s military capacity to protect American interests in the region. But Trump’s political rhetoric about the Iranian people taking over their government plus the targeting and elimination of Iran’s leader, Ali Khamenei shows that ultimately the goal is regime change.
Instead of regime change, Iran, although losing military capacity because of the ongoing American and Israeli military offensive, ten days into the war, has replaced Khamenei with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei defying Trump’s demand that the American government determine the future of Iran.
Although the American government projects believes that it can achieve victory in Iran in the coming weeks, the Iranian regime has prepared for a long war. For all intents and purposes, the Strait of Hormuz largely remains closed to oil and other marine traffic. Both the Americans and the Iranians say they can control the oil commerce in the strait – which accounts for around 20% of the global oil consumption. But Iran, and China heavily depend on oil transiting through the Strait of Hormuz putting pressure on both to see that the strait remains open to the oil.
But even if Iran capitulates on the strait and allows oil to flow, it would not signal a regime change, rather an economic priority for Iran to keep the money from oil flowing to continue to fund the regime.
Thus, America’s hope of regime change through standoff warfare and leadership decapacitation is likely not achievable without unprecedented economic pressure on Iran, which would likely escalate the conflict where China and other regional actors become involved, or American servicemen are deployed to Iran. Both scenarios are not possible when the November midterm elections in America are considered. Ultimately, the American people would not support American servicemen in Iran and the rising price of gasoline and other consumables going into the elections would lead to Republican defeats – untenable to the Republicans.
Nonetheless, America continues its doctrine of leadership decapitation to address what it considers threats to the homeland. Both the removal of Maduro and the death of El Mencho demonstrate this.
The capture of Maduro by U.S. forces was less a strategy of standoff warfare and more of a leadership decapitation tactic. Although the U.S. deployed boots on the ground in the Venezuelan operation, it used long range precision-guided weapons to soften the target area while limiting the operation’s scope to the goal of removing Maduro from Venezuela, in essence decapitating the Venezuelan leadership.
Leadership Decapitation
Although the decapitation of leadership seems popular for the Trump administration, its quantifiable results are lackluster at best, especially in the realm of counternarcotics in Latin America.
The problem with leadership decapitation is that it leaves a leadership vacuum making ending the conflict more difficult because there is no one that can order a standdown. It also leaves a leadership vacuum that outsiders can take advantage of for their own political agenda.
The war on terror provides experience as to what the result of various leadership decapitations looks like. Past leadership decapitations against terrorist organizations show mixed results. For targets that are newer, smaller or ideologically driven, the removal of leadership offers better success in that the figurehead figures extensively in the group’s goals.
But in religious-based groups, like Iran, and long-term groups like drug cartels who are motivated by money the results show that the groups can effectively adopt to leadership voids. The violence that follows the removal of a drug cartel’s leader is the process by which the new cartel leader emerges or in some cases, new leaders for the remnants of the larger cartel group.
The evidence is clear that when it comes to non-ideological-driven groups, like drug cartels who are driven by money, or Iran, driven by religious fervor, the decapitation tactic is ineffective and usually counterproductive.
The removal of the leadership of a country or a criminal organization will weaken operational capacity at first, but the examples of Venezuela, the historical record on the removal of cartel leaders and what is currently happening in Iran show that it either results in violence or leaves the regime largely intact. Maduro may have been removed, but his regime remains in place in Venezuela, albeit with the current Venezuelan leadership somewhat compliant to Washington’s demand for control of the country’s oil economy.
Likewise, are the examples of the removal of Joaquín Guzmán López (El Chapo) as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel and Nemesio Rubén Osegura Cervantes (El Mencho) as the leader of CJNG by Mexican forces. Both resulted in an immediate uptick of violence and have had little effect on the number of drugs trafficked into the U.S. As a matter of fact, the removal of El Chapo led to El Mencho filling the cartel leadership vacuum left by El Chapo. El Mencho’s death has led to violence but it does not seem to have had any impact on fentanyl trafficking, making his death symbolic at best in the war to curb drug trafficking.
It is from this background that leads to analyzing the security and economic implications for México, which is far from the Iran conflict but faces the consequences of a prolonged Iran war.
The Implications for México
Exacerbating the potential problem for México is the upcoming World Cup which increases pressure on the security apparatus of the Mexican state. A long-term war in Iran puts pressure on the Mexican economy by potentially disrupting supply chains and disrupting the economy through the spike in oil prices. When factoring in the drug cartel dynamic, the potential destabilizing affect of any Iran-cartel convergence, even an imagined one or one stopped by security forces could lead to disruptions in the U.S.-México relationship. Iran benefits from rising security concerns in México because it would force the U.S. to bring back military forces to deal with a perceived Mexican danger at the border.
But the opposite is true as well when it comes to the U.S.-México bilateral coordination on border security as American resources are diverted towards the Middle East.
However, the biggest stressor for the Mexican state from the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict is on the economic front. A prolonged war would lead to global inflation and an American economic downturn leading to a slowdown of the Mexican economy that is dependent on export trade.
The continued disruption of the global supply chain and rising energy costs will pressure the Mexican economy the longer the war lasts.
México occupies a unique position in the conflict, far from it but deeply exposed through its economic and security ties to the United States. The drug cartels add to the exposure should they engage with Iranian groups to offset economic losses from enhanced border security and drug precursor disruptions. The next months will provide a better understanding of México’s economic resilience should the war last longer than what the Trump administration anticipates.
