‘All options are on the table’: Pete Hegseth says Trump admin can go after cartels on Mexican soil

Hegseth appeared on Fox and Friends where he was asked if he would be permitted as the Secretary of Defense to hit the drug cartels in foreign nations such as in Mexico with the US military.

"I don't want to get ahead of the President, and I won't that's ultimately going to be his decision, but let me be clear, all options will be on the table. If we're dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border, and we're finally securing our border," Hegseth responded.

"We've been securing other people's border for a very long time. The military is orienting shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border. That is something we will do and do robustly," he added.

With an executive order issued on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to designate "cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations." The Trump executive order said, "The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs."

The designation comes after Trump's consistent call for labeling the cartels as terrorist organizations and has called for using the US military on Mexican soil if necessary, to take them out.