Trump’s focus on drug war means big business for defense startups

Drones, sensors and AI platforms developed for other theaters are being rebranded as tools for the fight against ‘narco-terror’

- Heather Somerville &Vera Bergengruen

The Trump administration maintains that drug cartels pose an imminent threat to America's national security.

The U.S. military has turned its attention southward, and the defense industry is lining up to sell it the tools for a different kind of war.

Defense-tech companies and artificial-intelligence startups have found a vital new market in President Trump's rapidly escalating drug war. Weapons and Al platforms that were designed for a future conflict with China or struggled to prove themselves on the Ukrainian battlefield have found a niche in the administration’s tech-enabled crackdown on drug trafficking.

Drone and imaging companies are assisting the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy with interdiction operations in the Caribbean. AI companies from Silicon Valley to Dubai are pitching platforms that promise to map the hidden networks of fentanyl traffickers. On the southern US. border, a counterdrone system developed in Ukraine is being repurposed to deflect incursions from Mexico.

As Washington has revived the rhetoric and legal tools of the global war on terror, more companies large and small have staked their claims to the emerging market, at times retooling to fit the latest mission. They have rebranded their drones, sensors, Al tools and data platforms as custom tools for Trump’s fight against “narco-terror.”

The effort has accelerated since early September, when the U.S. military began an unprecedented campaign against small drug-trafficking vessels, executing strikes that have killed more than 80 people. Some regional allies have accused the U.S. of extrajudicial killings of civilians. The Trump administration maintains that drug cartels pose an imminent threat to America’s national security.