by Tim Golden

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In the spring of 2019, as a new Mexican government shut down most of its cooperation with the United States in the fight against drug trafficking, a small group of American drug agents decided to confront the problem in a different way.

Sifting through databases and court files, they compiled dossiers on Mexican officials suspected of colluding with the mafias. Months later, federal prosecutors used the evidence to indict a former security minister, Genaro García Luna, the most important Mexican figure ever convicted on U.S. drug corruption charges.

The senior agent who led the team, Terrance C. Cole, was not rewarded for his efforts. He sought a promotion to run the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Mexico City office but was passed over. Frustrated with the agency’s direction and his own career trajectory, he retired in 2020 to take a job with a software company before becoming Virginia’s secretary of public safety in 2023.

Five years later, Cole is returning to run the DEA, having emerged as President Donald Trump’s unexpected choice for the position.

Unlike other former agents who have led the DEA, Cole never rose to its top ranks or even ran one of its 23 domestic field divisions. His most significant leadership experience has been overseeing police, prisons and emergency response agencies under Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Trump ally who championed Cole for the DEA post.

But with the White House promising an all-out fight against the traffickers who have flooded U.S. markets with fentanyl and other illegal drugs, Cole would bring an unusual background to the job. That includes some searing experiences with the corruption that sustains the drug trade, and a conviction that the United States cannot successfully fight the traffickers without also taking on the officials who abet their operations.

“The Mexican drug cartels work hand-in-hand with corrupt Mexican government officials at high levels,” Cole said in an interview with the far-right news site Breitbart shortly after his retirement. “If the average taxpayer had a basic understanding of how these two groups work together still — to this minute — they would be sickened.”

The Trump administration has warned that it is prepared to take unilateral actions against drug mafias in Mexico if the government there does not greatly escalate its own efforts. But current and former officials said White House discussions have been more focused on the tactics it could use against the traffickers — from drone strikes to cyber operations — than on any longer-term strategy to weaken them.

The administration may also have set in motion a new era of interagency competition on the issue, with the CIA and the Defense Department presenting proposals to expand U.S. intelligence collection on traffickers in Mexico and try to disrupt their operations in ways that may or may not complement the efforts of the DEA and other law enforcement agencies.

How U.S. officials might confront Mexico’s endemic corruption remains an open question. But after decades in which the problem has been mostly subordinated to other U.S. interests, it is likely to command a higher priority in American policy — and to unsettle the U.S. relationship with Mexico.

In its first announcement of punitive tariffs on Mexico, the White House cited “an intolerable alliance” between the government and the drug trade. “This alliance endangers the national security........

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