The U.S. State Department is drawing up a list of Latin American gangs and cartels to be labeled terrorist organizations this month, following President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order calling for their “total elimination.” The order already named the Venezuela-born Tren de Aragua group and El Salvador’s MS-13 gang. A terrorist designation for organized crime in Mexico could lay the groundwork for direct U.S. strikes against these illegal groups. What would the label mean for fighting organized crime in Mexico – and for Mexico’s relationship with the United States?
Who in Mexico could be labeled a foreign terrorist organization?
Five cartels based in Mexico are expected to be designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) by the State Department, according to anonymously sourced reporting by The New York Times.
Why We Wrote This
Drug cartels in Mexico sow terror, but their goals are economic rather than political. Experts debate how a new “terrorist” designation for them could change U.S.-Mexican relations.
Together, they span almost the entirety of Mexico. One of them, the Sinaloa cartel, is considered among the biggest criminal forces in the hemisphere, primarily trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and other narcotics internationally. Jalisco New Generation, another targeted group, has a reputation for its excessive use of violence; it shot down a Mexican military helicopter in 2015.
Whether these groups are “terrorists” has been debated for years, by those ranging from former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to former Mexican President Felipe Calderón to Mr. Trump during his first term. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to list Mexican cartels as terrorists under Canadian law, as well.
What new tools will the U.S. gain through using this label?
This could broaden the ability of the U.S. to choke off economic channels for criminal groups by cracking down on people or businesses that provide “material support or resources.” That could also mean complications for businesses that might be paying “fees” to cartels for the safe passage of their goods inside Mexico – think anything from avocados to mineral extraction – or even for multinationals.
It could even implicate companies like the global money-transfer firm Western Union: Remittances sent home to one’s family in a state where a powerful criminal group operates could become “material support” for terrorism.
“This is a tool that’s been sitting in the toolbox that hasn’t really been used,” says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. “I think the Trump administration has concluded that nothing else has worked” in combating drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, which have expanded far beyond narcotics to profit from other lines of illicit business like human trafficking, he says.
Although the FTO designation itself would not authorize any kind of military action to fight these criminal groups, “It could prepare the political groundwork in the U.S. for military intervention” in Mexico, says Elisabeth Malkin, deputy program director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group. Already, Mr. Trump and his supporters have suggested launching targeted bombings of drug labs and sending special forces to kill cartel leaders. (There have been covert, nonlethal drone flights since the Biden administration, which have already been stepped up under Mr. Trump.)
With the terrorist label, American lawmakers might be emboldened to discuss highly controversial military action in not only a sovereign nation, but also a neighbor and ally.
Do drug trafficking organizations in Mexico fit the “terrorism” label?
There’s no doubt that Mexican cartels sow terror – from lifeless bodies hanging with threatening messages from public bridges to car bombs, widespread disappearances, and public shoot-outs. But generating a sense of terror doesn’t make cartel members terrorists.
The definition is highly contested in both politics and academia. Although experts agree that violence – or a threat of it – is always involved, there also needs to be a political motive to qualify as terrorism, says Dr. Hoffman: “It’s about achieving fundamental political change.”
In that sense, Dr. Hoffman, who has studied terrorism and insurgency for nearly five decades, doesn’t think Mexican cartels fit the label.
Mexico wrapped up its deadliest election on record last June, with 34 political candidates assassinated during the campaign season, hundreds of others reporting threats on their lives, and some dropping out of their races. But the cartel violence is all a means to a commercial end, Dr. Hoffman says.
Misusing the label has risks. “It means that anything that threatens us we can label as terrorism, or anything that scares us,” he says. It can lead to bad policies – and in the case of using the term erroneously for groups just next door, “It immediately raises the question of what lengths the U.S. will go, when empowered by national security laws.”
What will this mean for U.S.-Mexico relations?
Designating groups as terrorists doesn’t typically affect diplomatic relations, but given tense bilateral relations with Mexico, this policy could be different.
The U.S. angered Mexico earlier this month when, in announcing 25% tariffs on Mexico, it accused the government of having an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking groups. (There is a 30-day pause on the tariffs while Mexico takes steps to address the drug trafficking concerns, as well as border security.)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo responded swiftly on social media, rejecting “the slander made by the White House” and hitting back with accusations of U.S. gun shops facilitating the smuggling of high-powered weapons to Mexican criminal groups. Some 70% of firearms traced in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 originated in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Employing the word “terrorist” instead of “cartel” could have broad implications for Mexico in everything from renegotiating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, formerly known as NAFTA, to pushing to tighten U.S. gun rules.
In upcoming oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, the Mexican government is alleging Smith & Wesson Brands and other U.S. gun manufacturers are facilitating violence in Mexico through their gun-sales practices.
If it’s proved that gun manufacturers in the U.S. are selling knowingly to cartels in Mexico, and those groups are then relabeled terrorists, it could be considered “material support” to terrorists.
