A truck burns on a street in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. © AP / Martin Urista
One month after signing the executive order on the day of his return to the White House, Donald Trump has got the US government to designate six Mexican cartels as “terrorists”, with all the economic, political, and even military consequences that this entails.
The directive, revealed through a brief note published in the US Federal Register by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, contemplates the inclusion of eight Latin American criminal groups on the US government’s list of terrorist organizations. The same list includes names of groups such as Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Boko Haram and Hezbollah.
The Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Gulf Cartel, the Cartel del Noroeste, the Cateles Unidos and the Nueva Familia Michoacana are the Mexican criminal groups that are now considered terrorists by Washington, but what does this movement mean for drug trafficking?
In practical terms, the inclusion of Mexican drug cartels triggers a series of legal, economic and military tools that lead to the freezing of bank accounts related to these organizations, economic sanctions on players who collaborate in any way with them, as well as a boost to arbitrary arrests in the name of the fight against terrorism.
In her reaction to the measure, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum received the announcement with caution, mentioning that if the reason behind the decision is to deepen the investigation into money laundering schemes and the presence of criminal groups within the United States, it is acceptable.
However, the president did reveal a glimmer of the concern that has been running through the Mexican imagination since Trump outlined the idea of designating the cartels as “terrorists”: “What we do not accept is the violation of our sovereignty,” Sheinbaum said on the morning of February 19.
Invasion in sight?
Scheduled to come into effect on February 20th, the designation of drug cartels as equivalent to extremist groups in Africa, the Middle East and Europe does not provoke a feeling of happiness and relief, neither in the Mexican government nor in Mexican society, which wonders if this decision could justify a possible US military advance on Mexican territory.
And the evidence that gives way to this hypothesis is not little. The very origin of the list of terrorist organizations lies in 2001, when the then US president, George W. Bush, inaugurated the “War on Terror” by creating said mechanism and adding Al-Qaeda to it; in October of that year, Washington launched an invasion of Afghanistan, justified – at least narratively – by the fight against terrorism.
Currently, Trump has not ruled out the idea of sending US troops to Mexican territory to dismantle the drug cartels, whom he accuses of threatening the country’s national security by trafficking drugs such as fentanyl, the cause of one of the worst health crises in the recent history of the North American giant.
For Carlos Matienzo, director of DataInt and security expert, the essential implication of the designation of Mexican drug traffickers as terrorists is in the legal and economic effects that the US justice system will undertake against those associated with the cartels, pointing out that, strictly speaking, this range of tactics is the only one activated by this decision.
“While legally this does not necessarily trigger an invasion or war tools to combat them, it does give it the narrative and political framework that brings that possibility closer. The truth is that this possibility could be done with or without the designation of the cartels as terrorists, it is less a legal issue and more a matter of political decision, of force,” the Mexican security expert told France 24.
With Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the closet, the White House is not the first to justify its warlike actions regarding terrorism, although in recent years, the concept of terrorism has been modified to suit the man in power in America. For example, for the first Trump administration, the Houthi rebels were terrorists, but for Joe Biden, they were not.
For other experts, the Republican leader’s decision responds to one of his usual, but unorthodox, negotiation tactics.
“If you put it in perspective, this could be framed in the discursive logic of threats and negotiation that has characterized Trumpist politics. It is, in short, one more attempt to corner the Mexican government. The question is with what ulterior objective,” explained Roberto Alonso, coordinator of the Political Science degree at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, in an interview with France 24 in Spanish.
From the War on Terror to the War on Drug Trafficking
Traditionally, the list of terrorist organisations was reserved for groups such as ETA, the extinct FARC, Hamas or Islamic Jihad, organisations that are linked by their political motivations.
Terrorism is a political category that corresponds to those groups that sow terror in a sector of the population to achieve a political objective. It can be of various kinds, from the imposition of a caliphate to the collapse of the modern State. Meanwhile, the motive is close to ideas, whatever their nature. Do the cartels have a political motive?
For Matienzo the answer is no, however, that does not exempt them from having used terror to achieve ends closer to materiality, such as protection rackets or the assassination of a local political candidate that did not benefit their interests.
The Mexican cartels, characterized by their sadism and extreme violence, have been the protagonists of numerous terrifying scenes on Mexican soil, in addition to attacking government forces and civil society on numerous occasions. Although their objective is economic, the means they use to achieve it are similar to those of ‘traditional’ terrorism.
“Although they are not terrorists, they are something more than common criminals. In Mexico, we could consider them as internal combatants, armed criminal organizations, organized crime with paramilitary arms… We have to look for that ideal concept, and in the absence of it, the United States has designated them as terrorists, with all the legal implications that this entails,” said Matienzo.
Another essential point to consider about the new category of Mexican drug traffickers in the United States has to do with the flexibility of the institutional apparatus of Washington depending on the administration in power and its interests. After the September 2001 attacks in New York, the White House’s main mission was to eliminate terrorist groups that threatened the integrity of the country, even if they were on the other side of the ocean.
Today, in line with the nationalist rhetoric defended by Trump, the priority seems to have changed, and with it the nature of the American institutional tools.
“What this does show is that the entire security and justice apparatus – and now also the defense apparatus – have made the cartels one of their top priorities in the world. Just as after 2001 the priority was Islamic terrorism, I would say that today the number one priority is probably the cartels along with migration,” Matienzo explained in an interview with France 24 in Spanish.
Mexico’s Reaction
At its peak, the measure developed in an office within the White House will have its most intense effects miles from Washington, south of the border.
Outside of hypothetical armed interventions, economic and legal sanctions for those players who are “linked to terrorism” represent one of the first challenges for the Mexican government after this measure. In Mexico, organized crime has slipped through the thinnest cracks of society, blurring the line between its legal and illegal businesses, as well as forcing thousands of Mexicans to collaborate.
For example, economic sanctions could fall on an owner who rents a property to a cartel that organizes an event, or on an avocado farmer who pays a protection money for the harvest of the fruit.
“The financial consequences, therefore, are those that could lead to major challenges for the bilateral relationship, since any company or person involved in the criminal networks of the cartels in question, starting with the most vulnerable, would be affected by a decree that places this battle in the realm of national security,” said Alonso.
However, for experts, Trump’s decision also opens a door of opportunity for the Sheinbaum Government. In conversation with France 24, Alonso details that the consequences contemplated by the designation can become political tools for the president to echo past claims against drug trafficking partners, such as arms manufacturers.
“Unlike other similar figures, President Claudia Sheinbaum showed this style in the face of the threat of tariffs and it seems that, at least in the immediate future, it worked for her and she gained time. The measure, on the other hand, could favor the turn that security policy has had in the six-year term that begins,” said the Mexican professor.
Meanwhile, the blow dealt from Washington against organized crime worries those most exposed to the problem, since an announcement of this caliber could cause internal fractures in organizations accustomed to the internal battle for power.
Wars, such as the one that currently exists in the northern state of Sinaloa, whose final victims are always civilians.
With AP, Reuters and local media
Original article by Maximiliano Pérez Gallardo, France 24, February 20, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas