WASHINGTON — In recent days, the Trump administration has ramped up CIA surveillance drone flights over Mexico, formally designated drug cartels as “foreign terrorist” groups and floated the possibility of deploying troops there to fight organized crime.

The CIA under President Donald Trump has been covertly flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels, current and former officials familiar with the matter told CNN, part of Trump’s dramatic reorientation of national security assets to the US southern border.

The covert program, begun during the Biden administration and stepped up by President Trump, is hunting for the location of fentanyl labs.