The President Donald Trump He ordered the Armed Forces to combat the Latin American cartels that the United States designated as “terrorist” global organizations, several US media reported on Friday.
Republican president libra a war against cartels since he returned to power in January, especially to try to stop the Fentanyl traffica synthetic opioid that caused almost 50,000 deaths due to overdose in 2024 in the United States.
In February, eight global terrorists “organized organized crime from Latin America, including the Sinaloa Cartel, the Venezuelan, Aragua train and the gang MS-13. In July he added to the list the Los Soles Cartelled, according to Washington, by the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
Several US media say that Trump has secretly signed a decree to go further.
The New York Timesciting anonymous sources, ensures that the president has ordered the pentagon to Start using military force against cartels designated as terrorist organizations.
The Wall Street Journalthat cites an official whose identity does not reveal, he argues that at the moment Trump has limited himself to asking the Department of Defense to prepare options. One of them would consist of using special forces and intelligence units, although any operation would be coordinated with the countries involved, adds this newspaper.
The White House has not come into details. “Trump’s main priority is to protect the homeland, and that is why he has made the bold decision to designate several cartels and bands as foreign terrorist organizations,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly just said.
At the end of February the White House threatened with “Open the doors of hell” against cartels To guarantee border security with Mexico, but this country rules out an invasion.
‘There will be no invasion’
“We were informed that this executive order came and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military or any institution in our territory,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday in her usual morning press conference.
“The United States will not come to Mexico with the military; we cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion, that is discarded, absolutely discarded and, in addition to the fact that we have expressed it in all calls, it is not allowed, nor is it part of any agreement,” added the first president.
The president said that the United States agencies that have a presence in Mexico “are very regulated.”
The designation of global “terrorist” organizations allows us to use “elements of American power, such as intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, etc., to attack these groups if we have the opportunity,” said the head of diplomacy on Thursday Marco Rubio In an interview with Ewtn.
“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply as drug trafficking organizations,” Rubio said.
In his opinion “it is no longer a matter of application of the law. It becomes a national security issue.”
Several Republican congressmen have long pressed to apply hard hand to drug trafficking and violence.
On Thursday the Trump administration increased to $ 50 million for “information that leads to arrest” of Nicolás Madurowhom he accuses of collaborating with drug trafficking organizations.
The attorney general Pam Bondi He said Maduro uses “foreign terrorist organizations such as the Aragua train, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Los Soles Cartel to introduce lethal drugs and violence” in the US, an accusation crossed out by Caracas of “smoke curtain.”
In 2020 the United States formally accused Maduro of “drug trafficking.”
