President Trump signs executive measures to the White House after his inauguration on Monday. Among these orders, there is a qualifying the Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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President Trump, in one of his first actions since his return to power, has signed a decree that pushes the US government to designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
This decision is part of the wider efforts of the Trump administration to suppress the flow of drugs and people through the southern border. All the implications for the designation of cartels as terrorist organizations will largely depend on the way in which the administration will follow up on it.
Here is an overview of what the order and its possible implications says:
Order
The order says that cartels are a threat to national security, unlike traditional organized crime. They led a “campaign of violence and terror through the Western hemisphere” with destabilizing effects, including an influx of “fatal drugs, violent criminals and vicious gangs” in the United States.
He also claims that cartels, as well as two transnational gangs rooted in Central America, constitute a threat to national security in the United States, and that American policy is to “guarantee the total elimination of the presence of these organizations in the States -Unis ”.
The prescription charges the US State Department to recommend, within 14 days, if it is advisable to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
What would a terrorist designation be for?
The US government already has tools, including accusations and criminal sanctions, which it can use to continue the cartels. A terrorist designation would extend these options.
According to experts, the most important additional tool is the possibility of initiating proceedings for material support. According to American law, providing material support to an designated terrorist organization is a crime.
Material support can go from money or weapons to housing, including false papers or even a phone card.
In the context of drug cartels, prosecutors could potentially use this accusation against a whole series of actors, including cartel members, street gangs in the United States who sell narcotics, as well as anyone providing support financial or logistics.
Training effects could, however, be more important.
Some analysts note that American companies that do business in Mexico perform payments to Mexican companies regularly, some of which could be controlled or affiliated with a cartel or cartel members. This could possibly expose these American companies to sanctions.
Migrants could also be potentially involved in proceedings for material support. Experts claim that migrants often pay smugglers to go through Mexico or cross the border between the United States and Mexico, and that these smugglers often have links with cartels. And this could provide the American authorities from preventing these migrants from entering the United States.
Questions have been raised as to whether a designation as a terrorist would open the door to a possible unilateral military action in the United States in Mexican territory.
The American president already has the power to carry out military action – a designation would not change anything. But American military strikes inside Mexico would constitute a major step, and Mexico clearly said that it opposed such an action.
Have the United States already thinking about all of this?
The idea of appointing cartels as terrorist organizations was envisaged during Trump’s first term, but also under the Obama administration, but the government has never followed up.
There are various reasons why it stopped, said Jason Blazakis, who headed the office of the State Department responsible for proceeding to the designations.
“One of the most important reasons is the negative impact that such designation would have on bilateral relations between the United States and Mexico,” said Blazakis. “Mexico, as a government, has opposed the designation of criminal organizations as terrorists, believing that this could endanger their sovereignty.”
Another reason, he explained, is the desire to calibrate the list “to guarantee that truly terrorist actors who commit political acts of violence against civilians appear on this list, thinking in the sense of groups like Isis and Al Qaida, as opposed to criminal organizations mainly motivated by financial concerns.
He also notes that the US government already has many tools to target cartels, including criminal proceedings and assets freezing, and an additional designation and tools that accompany the designation have therefore not been considered necessary.
What about Mexico?
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico would defend its sovereignty but also try to coordinate with the United States.
“We all want to fight drug cartels,” said Sheinbaum to journalists this week.
The question of cartels cannot be considered in a vacuum, said Maria Calderón, specialist in Mexico at the Wilson Center, a non -partisan political center of Washington, DC.
“We have to integrate the security component of the border relationship between the United States and Mexico in discussions on trade and immigration,” she said. “These three areas of bilateral relations between the United States and Mexico are closely linked. You cannot separate them.”
Trump campaigned by promising to rage on the southern border and stem the flow of drugs and people through the border. He also threatened to impose customs duties in Mexico.
Since taking office on Monday, he took executive measures or publicly discussed the three subjects. According to analysts, these measures include a political message, but they can also be considered as a means of putting pressure on Mexico to coordinate more, especially in terms of security.
“I really hope that Mexico will take this opportunity to sit at the table with the Trump administration and consider the problem of cartels as a common problem and say: ‘OK, we have the real designation. How is it What are we going to work together to solve this problem? ‘, “said Calderón.
