By André Pienaar, Co-founder of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) also known as the Scorpions, an elite law enforcement and counter terrorist unit established by President Mandela in partnership with the DEA and the FBI.

On 20 January 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order 14157, “Designating Cartels and Other Organisations as Foreign Terrorist Organisations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists” (EO 14157).

This unprecedented move targeted major Latin American drug cartels – including Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), MS-13, Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, and others – by formally classifying them as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and concurrently as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). In President Trump’s words, “the cartels are waging war on America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels”.

On 08 August, President Trump signed a classified military directive authorising the US Department of Defence (DoD) and its combatant commands to use military force against the cartels as terrorist groups.

The cartels’ fentanyl trafficking has inflicted a mass-casualty event on the American population – more than 70,000 Americans die from synthetic overdoses annually, and those numbers are growing. This excludes American fatalities and victims from violent crimes perpetrated by the drug cartels and their criminal associates. By labelling cartels as terrorists, President Trump is marshalling extraordinary tools against what is arguably the greatest and most acute threat to American lives in recent memory.

The evolving policy represents a significant shift in US national security strategy – treating transnational criminal organisations not just as law enforcement targets, but as hybrid threats and terrorist groups.

This deep-dive article examines the legal foundations and expanded authorities under President Trump’s Executive Order, and how this approach bridges law enforcement and military tools in combating cartels. It explores the operational fusion of agencies like the DEA and US Southern Command, and the strategic value of this designation for US national security, border security, hemispheric stability, and international security.

Legal foundation: the case for the FTO designation

The designation of drug cartels as FTOs rests on the legal framework of Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), codified at 8 USC Section 1189.

Under INA Section 219, the Secretary of State may designate an entity as an FTO if it satisfies three criteria: (1) it is a foreign organisation, (2) it engages in “terrorist activity” (or terrorism) as defined by US law, and (3) that activity threatens the security of US nationals or the national security of the United States.

Critics argue that cartels are primarily motivated by profit rather than ideology, and therefore fall outside the realm of terrorism. However, the law does not demand an ideological motive. Nothing in the statute requires a religious or political motive – profit-driven violence is not a legal bar to designation. Senior legal scholars have underscored that Mexican cartels clearly meet these criteria. As Heritage Foundation legal fellow Paul Larkin explains, the cartels’ conduct – “the production and smuggling of massive quantities of illicit fentanyl… and the massive number of deaths those activities cause” – clearly constitutes terrorist activity that threatens the American public. The statute’s definition of terrorist acts – assassinations, kidnappings, violent attacks on civilians – encompasses the cartels’ tactics of brutal violence and intimidation.

Many designated terrorist organisations, from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to the Taliban’s criminal funding networks, mix profit motives with violence.

In practice, cartels exert quasi-political power. They “operate as a quasi-government throughout Mexico”, using bribery and bloody coercion – the infamous plata o plomo (“silver or lead”) strategy – to supplant legitimate authorities in their constitutional duty of providing security. Through campaigns of terror, the cartels have effectively become “shadow governments”, controlling territory and undermining the rule of law. This corrosive effect on governance and public safety bolsters the case that cartels are not mere crime syndicates, but hybrid threat actors that meet the INA’s standard for terrorist designation.

President Trump’s EO 14157 builds on this legal foundation. Citing the INA, the order notes that international cartels “have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere” that has destabilised countries and “flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs”. In certain areas, cartels “functionally control… nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border” and act as “quasi-governmental entities” in parts of Mexico. By “assassination, terror, rape, and brute force”, these groups threaten the safety of Americans and the stability of the region. Such language in a presidential order underscores the administration’s legal conclusion: the drug cartels do engage in terrorism as defined by US law and pose a clear and present danger to US national security.

Double tap EO 14157: FTO meets SDGT

EO 14157 not only triggers the INA Section 219 FTO process; it also invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to pursue parallel terrorist designations via the Treasury Department.

The Executive Order establishes a dual-track designation: naming cartels as FTOs under the INA, while simultaneously designating them as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) under terrorism sanctions authorities. This “double tap” approach marries the criminal and immigration consequences of the FTO label with the financial warfare tools of IEEPA-based sanctions.

Under EO 14157’s authority, the US government declared a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat posed by these cartels. This emergency declaration (a prerequisite for IEEPA measures) enables the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to designate the cartels and their leaders as SDGTs pursuant to EO 13224 (the primary terrorism sanctions programme). Practically, the dual designation means that all eight cartels identified by the State Department on 06 February 2025 – including the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, Cartel del Golfo (Gulf Cartel), Cartel del Noreste (Los Zetas), Cárteles Unidos, La Nueva Familia Michoacána, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua – are now on both the State Department’s FTO list and OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.

This yields a significantly expanded toolkit:

• Material support felonies: It is now a federal crime (18 USC Section 2339B) to knowingly provide any material support or resources to these cartels. Even paying “protection” money or engaging in business transactions with cartel-owned entities could trigger prosecution, as US law treats such acts as support to terrorists. Violators face lengthy prison sentences, and companies can incur massive fines and asset forfeiture penalties, as seen in past cases where firms were prosecuted for financing designated terrorists.
• Asset freezes and sanctions: All property and interests of the designated cartels (and those who assist them) subject to US jurisdiction are blocked. US persons and banks are forbidden from transacting with them, cutting off access to the US financial system. Crucially, IEEPA allows for secondary sanctions: the US can blacklist foreign individuals or institutions that materially support the cartels, or foreign banks that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for them.
• Immigration and travel bans: Members and associates of the cartels are inadmissible to the United States and may be swiftly removed if found on US soil. EO 14157 also directs the Attorney General and DHS to prepare to invoke the Alien Enemies Act in case of “any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion” by these organisations.

By fusing law enforcement, financial, and military/legal authorities, the FTO/SDGT double tap strategy attacks the cartels on all fronts.

As a White House legal analysis noted, “terrorist designations expose and isolate [these groups], denying them access to the US financial system and the resources they need to operate”. It also signals to foreign partners that the US views these cartels through a counterterrorism lens – a move that has already prompted action from allies. For example, Canada followed the US lead on 20 February 2025 by designating the same six Mexican cartels as terrorists, establishing a unified North American front. The statutory expansions under EO 14157 empower US agencies to pursue cartels with unprecedented vigour, while also beginning to align allied efforts to choke off the cartels’ funds and freedom of movement.

Bridging law enforcement and military legal authorities

One of the most important aspects of treating cartels as FTOs is the fusion of law enforcement and military powers. Drug cartels straddle the grey zone between crime and warfare – they are organised criminal enterprises, yet they employ military-grade weaponry, conduct insurgent-style attacks, and even control large swathes of territory and populations. By designating them as FTOs, the US government is effectively acknowledging cartels as “hybrid” threats that require a hybrid response. This bridges the traditional divide between the Department of Justice’s law enforcement jurisdiction and the Department of Defense’s war-fighting authority.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi captured this new ethos clearly: “As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying [them]”.

In the past, the DOJ’s role was largely to indict and extradite cartel leaders for criminal trial, which is often entirely dependent on liaison with foreign law enforcement agencies. At best, such investigations are a convoluted process. At worst, they can prove fatal for US law enforcement agents when the foreign agencies have been compromised by the cartels. On more than one occasion, this has led to the murder of intrepid DEA agents.

Now, the DOJ frames its mission in manhunts and disruption more akin to counterterrorism. FBI Director Kash Patel echoed this war footing, vowing to “scour the ends of the earth to bring terrorists and cartel members to justice” and declaring “the era of harming Americans and walking free is over”. This mirrors the language used against al-Qaeda or ISIS, indicating a policy shift to mobilise all elements of national power – prosecutors, law enforcement agents, analysts, intelligence, and, potentially, soldiers and special forces operators – against the cartels.

From the military side, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) are now squarely involved in what was once deemed solely a “war on drugs”. The Pentagon has long recognised the convergence of crime and terror in the Western Hemisphere. Back in 2016, Admiral Kurt Tidd (then SOUTHCOM Commander) warned Congress that “global terrorist and criminal networks are [his region’s] biggest threat, corrosively affecting the stability and security of the United States and every country they infect”. He stressed that these issues “transcend artificial boundaries and demand a transregional, united response” – foreshadowing today’s interagency campaign.

With cartels now officially labelled as terrorists, the US military can more readily support or even lead operations against them under counterterrorism authorities. As President Trump noted in a 04 March 2025 address, “the cartels are waging war on America” – and his choice of the word “war” was deliberate. It lays the groundwork to invoke military force under the President’s Commander-in-Chief authority, if needed, to protect US national security. The FTO designation now grants access to enhanced counterterrorism authorities, including the potential for covert action and use of the military in direct action missions. For example, operations can now be planned under Title 10 of US Code (military operations) in tandem with Title 18 and Title 21 (criminal statutes and drug enforcement).

Operational fusion of DEA, SOUTHCOM, and Title 10 Authorities

Translating this strategy into action will require unprecedented coordination on the ground. The operational logic is to fuse the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), SOUTHCOM, and other agencies into joint task forces that build on each entity’s strengths.

This kind of integration has precedent in fighting the cartels. For years, the multi-agency Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) in Key West has combined intelligence from the military, DEA, FBI, DHS, and international partners to interdict drug shipments in transit. “It is very much a team sport,” Admiral Tidd said of JIATF-S, noting that all federal law enforcement agencies and the Coast Guard contribute alongside DOD assets. EO 14157 effectively turbocharges this model – expanding the concept from intelligence-sharing to actual kinetic field operations against cartel networks.

Under the new approach, DEA agents may operate alongside US Special Forces and host-nation units, supported by real-time intelligence from satellites, surveillance drones, and military reconnaissance. Within weeks of the FTO designations, the US reportedly began conducting CIA-operated drone flights over Mexican territory (with Mexico’s cooperation) to map cartel compounds and supply routes. Those intelligence feeds can cue joint raids. For example, if a high-value cartel target is located, US-trained Mexican Marine units or DEA Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Teams could be deployed with US Special Forces to take down a cartel army.

The Title 10 authority of the US military now comes into play in a supportive or direct role: previously, the military was limited to training or surveillance support under counternarcotics assistance statutes; now, it can invoke counterterrorism authorities to take more direct action.

The President could, for instance, authorise a clandestine Special Forces operation to destroy a fentanyl mega-laboratory or to snatch a cartel warlord, similar to missions against terrorist leaders – especially if the host nation consents or is incapable of acting. The covert nature of some operations (enabled by the FTO designation’s legal finding) means they can be done with great speed and surprise.

Such integrated operations are already yielding results. In late February 2025, Attorney General Bondi announced that 29 cartel fugitives wanted in the US were taken into custody in a coordinated sweep. Many had been pending extradition for years, but the new climate of pressure on Mexico produced swift transfers. Among those finally brought to the US was Rafael Caro Quintero – the infamous cartel boss behind the kidnapping, torture, and murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985 – a crucial victory decades in the making. While the DOJ press release did not detail how these fugitives were apprehended, it credited “the Justice Department’s efforts pursuant to [EO 14157] to pursue total elimination of these cartels” for getting this done with Mexico’s government. In other words, the credible threat of decisive US action, and the demonstrable resolve to designate and dismantle the cartels, have improved cooperation, intelligence-sharing, and extradition outcomes with partner nations.

Looking ahead, the integration of DEA, SOUTHCOM, and Title 10 capabilities could take various forms: combined task forces, expanded intelligence fusion centres, and possibly joint strike forces.

The US Department of Defence has already surged personnel to the southern border under Title 10 to assist Border Patrol with surveillance and interdiction. Simultaneously, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) can deploy liaison teams to work with the DEA and host-nation units on the ground in Latin America.

The synergy of methods – law enforcement operations (evidence collection, arrests, prosecutions) tightly coordinated with military-style targeting (intelligence, cyber operations, precision strikes) – aims to collapse the cartels’ operational space. As one defence analysis noted, this “major escalation” in strategy is “arguably not seen since the early stages of the War on Terror” in terms of speed and scale of preparations. The ultimate goal is to leave the cartels with no sanctuary: whether they hide in a safehouse in Mexico or attempt to operate in cyberspace or across borders, an integrated US team can find, fix, and finish (or arrest) them.

Strategic value for national security, border security, hemispheric stability and international security

Designating and treating cartels as terrorists is not a mere symbolic gesture; it carries concrete strategic benefits for the United States and the wider Western Hemisphere. First and foremost is the protection of American lives. As former SOCOM Commander Admiral William McRaven observed in another context, when faced with a shadowy network killing Americans, you “find it, fix it, and finish it”. The FTO/SDGT designations allow exactly that approach. It sends a message that no effort will be spared to disrupt the poisoning of American communities – whether through sanctions on Chinese precursor chemical suppliers, indictments of cartel financiers, or special forces raids on drug labs.

In Attorney General Bondi’s words, “We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law… We will not rest until we secure justice for the American people.” This unwavering posture serves as both deterrent and reassurance: deterrence to cartel operatives and affiliates (who now know they face the full might of the US like al-Qaeda did), and reassurance to the American public that their government views the fentanyl epidemic and cartel violence as a national security emergency, not just a crime statistic.

President Trump has accomplished in three months what no other leader of a democracy thought possible – to end illegal immigration completely on the southern border.

Border security stands to improve even further under the new national security paradigm. For years, the US southern border has been exploited by cartels as a corridor for drug smuggling and human trafficking. Drug syndicates also smuggle people. The drug and people smugglers have fused into the same criminal syndicates.

EO 14157 bluntly states that cartels “functionally control… nearly all illegal traffic” across the US–Mexico border through terror and force. By moving against them as terrorists, the US can justify a range of border-hardening measures under a national security rationale.

Already, the administration has used economic statecraft, for example new tariffs on Mexico, to compel stronger action against cartels. Military surveillance assets are being deployed to detect illicit border incursions. If cartel operatives are identified attempting armed incursions, US forces can respond as they would to a terrorist infiltration. The FTO designation also means illegal entry by any known cartel member is a terrorism-related offence, enabling swifter removal and even charging them under anti-terror laws if they infiltrate US territory. In essence, the border is now viewed as a front line in the fight against a narco-terrorist threat, not merely an immigration management challenge. This perspective has galvanised interagency cooperation: DHS, FBI, DEA, and DOD are sharing intelligence in real time to interdict high-value targets at the border. As a result, indicators consistently show a decline in cartel-coordinated smuggling attempts across the vast southern border, and a rise in high-profile captures of people smugglers that disrupt cartel cross-border operations. Sealing the border from cartel exploitation not only stems the flow of drugs and criminals, but also curtails the cartels’ revenue from smuggling fees and other sources of crime.

Beyond US borders, hemispheric stability and the rule of law in Latin America and globally stand to benefit. The cartels have long undermined governments across Latin America and globally, fuelling corruption and violence. By declaring war on the cartels, the US is also extending a lifeline to its neighbours who have been locked in a losing battle against these crime-terror hybrids. As Admiral Tidd observed, “our Central American partners… cannot do it alone” in the fight against “vicious gangs and narcotraffickers”.

Now, with American leadership and resources fully engaged, other nations may find renewed courage to take on organised crime. The coordinated US–Canada designations of cartels in 2025 is one example of a united front that spans the continent. There are early reports of closer intelligence collaboration with Mexico’s military against shared targets. The Western Hemisphere’s security architecture could be strengthened as countries synchronise efforts against what is increasingly seen as a common enemy.

Over time, sustained pressure on cartels can reduce their grip on local economies and politics – giving breathing room for institutional reforms and economic development in places like Mexico, Honduras, and Venezuela.

This is a long-term benefit: stability in America’s near abroad reduces refugee flows, bolsters democratic governance, and checks the influence of adversaries like China or Iran that have partners with the drug cartels globally. In short, hemispheric security is indivisible, and crushing the cartels is a critical step toward a more secure and prosperous Americas.

Strategically, the FTO/SDGT approach also carries an important message. It tells the world that the US views transnational organised crime as a form of terrorism when it reaches the scale and savagery of the Latin cartels. This could set a precedent for dealing with similar problems elsewhere – West African Islamist narco-terror networks or South African organised crime syndicates – by applying a counterterrorism paradigm. It also flips the script on cartel kingpins: they are no longer merely “wanted criminals” – they are now enemies of the state on par with international terrorists, with all the peril that status entails. This psychological impact should not be underestimated. Cartel leaders who once felt untouchable might find themselves constantly looking over their shoulder (or up at the sky for drones). The fear and chaos they have imposed on others is now theirs to bear, knowing that highly skilled US operators and agents are on their trail and that we will never give up.

From the White House, the message is clear. “The era of harming Americans and walking free is over,” as FBI Director Kash Patel declared. The US has drawn a line in the sand: the cartels’ campaign of terror will be met with an equally relentless campaign to dismantle them. This integration of policy tools – legal, economic, and military – in confronting cartel-terrorists is more than an escalation; it is a redefinition of the fight, one that aligns with the realities of 21st-century threats. By linking the DEA, SOUTHCOM, and every asset in between, the US is bridging worlds that used to operate separately, forging a comprehensive national security shield against a multifaceted foe. In doing so, it aims to restore security at home, uphold the rule of law abroad, and reassert stability across our hemisphere – a mission as ambitious as it is vital, and one that President Trump’s EO 14157 has put firmly into motion.