With Trump’s offer to place troops in Mexico, recalling the US’s previous military interventions

This builds on the Trump administration’s actions against drug trafficking across the US’s southern border since January. Eight Latin American criminal organisations have been designated as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, and Trump has threatened to launch drone strikes into Mexico to combat drug trafficking.

However, the prospect of military presence raises concerns, in no small part due to the countries’ history, as well as the deployments of the US military to execute regime change in Latin American countries in the Cold War era. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, “Mexican officials said Mexico won’t consent to a U.S. military presence because of the nations’ fraught history, which includes two invasions since 1846.” What happened during those military campaigns? We explain.

The Mexican-American War, 1846-48

James K. Polk painted by G.P.A. Healy / October 7, 1858 at Chicago. (Wikimedia Commons)

The war began at the behest of then-US President James K Polk, who believed in the philosophy of “manifest destiny”. It is rooted in the idea of American exceptionalism, meaning the country occupied a special position among nations, and Americans were tasked with a divine mission to expand in territory westward across North America, spreading democratic and Protestant ideals.

In 1845, Polk moved to annexe the present-day state of Texas, which had gained independence from Mexico in 1836. Shortly after, Mexico severed its ties with the US in 1846.

He sought control of California, New Mexico and adjacent areas, then part of Mexico, and offered to purchase these territories. When this offer was rebuffed, he instigated the conflict by moving US troops into territory both Texas and Mexico claimed as their own, between the Nueces and the Rio Grande rivers in January 1846. Mexico retaliated in April, causing 16 casualties among the American troops. This response united Americans over a sense of nationalism, and the US declared war in May through an overwhelming resolution of Congress.

The American military leveraged strategy, brutality and luck to make significant gains in a short period. They captured Mexico City within 16 months while fighting battles in California and New Mexico, acquiring vast territory. When the war ended and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, the US had acquired California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming from Mexico for $15 million.

Notably, the war preceded the California Gold Rush (1848-1855), where the discovery of gold in the state attracted a massive influx of people seeking better fortunes.

This war is also credited with sowing the seeds of the American Civil War (1861-1865) amidst the prospect of expanding slavery into the new American territories. The northern US territories had all but abolished slavery, and baulked at the idea of slavery continuing in Texas and the newly acquired southern territories.

The Pancho Villa expedition, 1916-17

Pancho Villa and his followers in the 1910s (Wikimedia Commons)

The Punitive Expedition of 1916, or the Pancho Villa Expedition as it is formally called, was launched by the US Army against the Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. The military operation lasted from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, and was a retaliation against Villa’s attack on the town of Columbus in New Mexico, amidst a series of skirmishes across the shared border of the two countries.

According to the National Museum of American History, Villa’s raid posed an important challenge to the US, which had made major investments in Mexican mining, railroads and oil, controlling these through timely political and military operations. Mexican revolutionary leaders sought land reforms and nationalising these operations, an effort which then-US President Woodrow Wilson first supported and later opposed. This volte face would provide the impetus for the decade-long Mexican revolution, which ended in 1920.

Villa’s raid spurred the Wilson administration to order a punitive expedition. The US had made a series of incursions into Mexico by this point, and the President directed War Secretary Newton Baker to pursue Villa’s capture, according to the US Department of State archives. The expedition and the Wilson administration’s outreach to then Mexican President Venustiano Carranza were poorly received by Mexico, and it was seen as a violation of Mexican sovereignty.

The expedition proved to be a colossal flop: not only did the US fail to capture Villa, but it also ended up glorifying Villa as a nationalist hero who protested American aggression.