... the New York Times? Really?

As one might imagine, the Gray Lady does its best to split credit between Donald Trump and Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum. That tends to ignore the fact that Trump has had to bully Sheinbaum into action against the cartels through tariff threats, including at the very moment. However, even their own coverage concedes that the cartels understand where the juice has been squeezed and by whom:

One cartel leader says he’s trying to figure out how to protect his family in case the American military strikes inside Mexico. Another says he’s already gone into hiding, rarely leaving his home. Two young men who produce fentanyl for the cartel say they have shut down all their drug labs.

A barrage of arrests, drug seizures and lab busts by the Mexican authorities in recent months has struck the behemoth Sinaloa Cartel, according to Mexican officials and interviews with six cartel operatives, forcing at least some of its leaders to scale back on fentanyl production in Sinaloa state, their stronghold.

The cartels have sown terror across Mexico and caused untold damage in the United States. But here in Culiacán, the state capital, the dynamic seems to be shifting, at least for now. Cartel operatives say they’ve had to move labs to other areas of the country or temporarily shut down production.

Sounds like a Sheinbaum success? Not exactly, the NYT reports:

The government crackdown on organized crime intensified after the Trump administration threatened retribution unless Mexico halted the supply of fentanyl into the United States, vowing high tariffs if the flow of migrants and drugs continued.

It didn't just "intensify," it manifested after Trump made it clear that Mexico would pay for its refusal to take action. Sheinbaum talked a good game about going after the cartels and conducted a few showy operations, but the cartels knew how to work around any such efforts:

Cartel members said the only reason the government hadn’t really fought them until recently was because they’d bought off enough officials. One cartel cell leader said he doubted that this new effort would seriously damage the cartel because the group could ensure its survival by bribing key officials.

“There are always weak points,” he said, “there are always loose ends we can get to.”

To be fair, that's not the only context in which cartels look for "weak points." They also assassinate officials that attempt to curtail their organized-crime activities, which is one reason why the Trump administration has listed the cartels as terrorist organizations. That got their attention, as the NYT also reports, because it means they won't just be dealing with corrupt or weak local officials any longer. They may be looking at open warfare from the US against all of their positions, which has them literally "trembling" in this NYT report. 

That day may come more rapidly than they think. The death of a South Texas rancher by what appears to be an IED planted by cartel operatives may trigger a military response, an administration official told Fox News:

After 74-year-old U.S. citizen Antonio Céspedes Saldierna was killed in the blast, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told Fox News Digital that the administration will be relentless in working to fully secure the border.

He said that President Donald Trump’s recent designation of eight cartels – including MS-13, Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua and several Mexican cartels – as foreign terrorist organizations, "makes clear his intention to treat violent cartel members exactly as they should be treated – as terrorists."

Hughes did not offer any specifics on whether the administration is considering a military response to the suspected cartel killing but noted that the "administration has proven to be ruthlessly aggressive in pursuing criminal gangs that threaten our homeland."

He said that "President Trump will stop at nothing to secure our border, protect our communities, and dismantle terrorist organizations."

Trump has likely been itching for a provocation, and this could very well set up a demonstration of his resolve to end trafficking of all sorts. As Fox & Friends noted this morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already warned that the Pentagon is drafting plans for such operations -- and it might not take long to put one together. They'd better be "trembling," and let's hope it goes farther than just shaking hands.