‘Retaliatory strikes’: Warning as Donald Trump designates cartels terrorist organisations

“Cartels think they can bring their war here. Think again!” the US Border Patrol wrote on X, after confirming the hikers had been rescued.

The terrifying incident, coming exactly two days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, is likely an ominous foreshadowing of America’s coming war with the cartels — on both sides of the border.

On Monday, Mr Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of designating drug cartels and other Latin American gangs as foreign terrorist organisations, setting up the potential for broader sanctions against individuals and companies that do business with them, expanded law enforcement and surveillance powers, and even potential US military intervention.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office whether it would mean US Special Forces could be sent into Mexico to fight the cartels, Mr Trump left open the possibility.

“Could happen,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”

Mr Trump, as he signed the executive order, noted “people have wanted to do this for years”.

“So they are now designated as terrorist organisations and Mexico probably doesn’t want that but we have to do what’s right,” he said. “They’re killing our people, they’re killing 250,000 to 300,000 Americans a year.”

Asked “how are you going to deal with this” if Mexico’s President “doesn’t want that”, Mr Trump replied, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”

‘Violence and terror’

Mr Trump’s order refers to Mexican drug cartels as well as Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has rapidly gained a foothold inside the US with the recent migrant influx, and MS-13, a Satanic street gang founded in Los Angeles by Salvadoran migrants.

“The cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout...
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