Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based journalist and expert on cartels, said the designation would give the U.S. more power to go after cartels’ money and gun suppliers.
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that started a process by which international organized crime cartels would be designated as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” or “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
The designations would give the U.S. government power to go after the cartels’ finances, target those who supply them with weapons, and even carry out military strikes against cartel-owned facilities.
With groups such as the Sinaloa cartel, MS-13 from El Salvador, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua posing a serious threat to the United States, analysts say these new terrorist designations could have far-reaching consequences.
The Trump administration has not gone into detail about how it plans to use the new powers, but on Jan. 31, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would not rule out military strikes against the cartels.
On Feb. 3, following Trump’s tariffs threat, Canada announced it would invest $200 million and appoint a czar to investigate the fentanyl trade and would also designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.
Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based journalist and author of several books, including “El Narco, The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels,” told The Epoch Times the terrorist designations would provide the U.S. government with more power to go after the cartels’ finances.
He said it could also be used to target arms dealers in the United States who provide weapons for them.
“You could go after people trafficking firearms to the cartels, you could arrest them for providing material to a foreign terrorist organization,” Grillo said.
Organized crime syndicates such as Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa cartel will be put in the same basket as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other groups listed as designated foreign terrorist organizations on the State Department’s website.
Francois Cavard, a human rights activist who has spent years investigating the drug trade in Central and South America, told The Epoch Times that changing the legal status of cartels such as Tren de Aragua from “being considered just another criminal organization” to being designated as terrorists was “huge.”
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