From cartels to terrorists: Trump imposes a new paradigm on Mexico in the war on drugs

“As commander-in-chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before.” This is how Donald Trump announced an avalanche of decrees to address the migration crisis and the fight against organized crime during his inaugural address. After months of warnings, the Republican made his threats against Mexico concrete with a battery of heavy-handed measures that contained few surprises. “This already happened — it’s not something new,” said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, outlining the actions of the White House against immigration. There was, however, one notable exception: the designation of the cartels as terrorist organizations. The change heralds a new era in the war on drugs. It places unprecedented power in Trump’s hands as well as greater discretion and more weapons to pressure the Mexican authorities, who are on edge due to the risks to the country’s sovereignty and the impact on all critical areas of the bilateral relationship.

“We are facing a paradigm shift,” says Víctor Hernández, a professor at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. “The relationship between Mexico and the United States is changing forever.” South of the border, the main concern is that the designation of the cartels as terrorist organizations opens the door to military intervention on Mexican territory under the excuse of fighting terrorism.

There is no clear consensus on the scope of the threat and Trump’s unpredictable nature adds to the uncertainty. The range of possibilities that divides politicians and specialists includes operations to capture drug lords without notifying Mexican authorities to a “soft invasion.” “Stranger things have happened,” said the Republican about the possibility of action by the U.S. military. It is not just a new toolbox, it is a new toolbox in Trump’s hands and with consequences that could extend far beyond his presidency.

“Mexico is not going to like it,” the Republican said after signing the decree. The tone of the statements has also sparked a debate on whether it will be just a negotiating weapon, part of the president’s repertoire of bravado, or whether the danger is real. Marco Rubio, the next head of U.S. diplomacy, said last week that military intervention was an “option” on the table, but he clarified that the ideal scenario was to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

The implications go beyond a soft invasion. The decree gives the Trump administration new tools to tighten the noose around criminal groups, particularly to weaken their financial structures. The executive order is based on other measures, including those used by George W. Bush to launch the “war on terror” after September 11, which give “more teeth” to U.S. agencies to follow the money trail and sanction those who sponsor terrorist cells. The first consequence of the designation is the freezing of the cartels’ assets and their blocking of the international banking system, but the mechanism triggers an entire apparatus of military and judicial measures.

On paper, the blow to economic structures and money laundering schemes is the most positive effect of the change Trump is pushing for. But it is not without its problems. Anyone who deals — knowingly or not — with a drug trafficker can be accused of links to terrorism. That puts financial institutions and arms manufacturers in the same bag, but also merchants forced to pay extortion or immigrants who pay a trafficker to cross the border.

“It is a much more aggressive legislation; the fight against drugs is in the orbit of public security, while the fight against terrorism is a matter of national security,” warns Hernández. The gray areas between legal and illegal drug trafficking businesses make its application difficult and, although both Democratic and Republican administrations have explored the idea during the last decade, these complications and doubts about its effectiveness ended up dissuading them.

The decree opens the door for arbitrary arrests with harsher penalties and against the weakest links in the criminal chain. Hernández points out that the new framework can lead to the capture of, for example, an undocumented worker pressured to launder drug money through the sending of remittances — a widely documented phenomenon — but sheds little light on who really pulls the strings. “It will put a lot of people in jail, but I doubt that it will really advance intelligence work,” he says.

Another problematic aspect is what does and does not constitute terrorism. The interpretation will be exclusive to the United States. “The designation of terrorist actors is not necessarily linked to terrorism itself, it obeys the agendas and goals of the different administrations,” says Mauricio Meschoulam, a researcher at the Ibero-American University. For Trump, the Houthis in Yemen are terrorists, but for Joe Biden they were not. Now, the focus is on cartels and gangs like Mara Salvatrucha.

Meschoulam, who has studied the phenomenon for more than a decade, says that the fight against terrorism expands the margins of discretion of U.S. agencies and reduces the burden of proof for action, arguing that prevention is crucial and that when a terrorist attack occurs it is already too late. “A plausible suspicion that someone is thinking of or planning an attack is enough to spy on them, tap their phones or their homes,” says the academic. In the 10 years following the 2001 attacks, sentences for terrorism in the United States increased eightfold compared to the previous decade, according to a study by the NBC network, while Human Rights Watch documented dozens of cases with irregularities.

The decree also marks a turning point in the discourse against drugs and the migration crisis. Trump accuses the cartels of spreading “terror” through murder and rape, but also by “invading” the U.S. with drugs and immigrants and undermining Mexican authorities. “In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society,” states the text of the decree.

Trump does not mention the drug epidemic or its victims in the entire decree, but he does refer to “terror” a dozen times and the violation of his national interests. It is a new war, which justifies other types of measures. “It is a double militarization,” says Hernández: one of the border and another against drug trafficking. The Pentagon, with an annual budget of some $824 billion, will play a much more prominent role in this new paradigm. Last week, the deployment of 1,500 American soldiers on the border was announced.

The anti-cartel order is just the beginning. The text sets a 14-day deadline for Rubio to make a recommendation on which groups will be designated as terrorists, the first step toward placing the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on the same level as ISIS or the Taliban. The secretary of state must submit an intelligence report and notify the Republican-controlled Congress, which has seven days to review the request. The law provides another 30 days for the cartels to appeal the decision, which is unlikely because the bosses do not usually present themselves publicly as leaders of their organizations. “It will take time, although the process will move quickly,” says Meschoulam. “But Trump has already generated the political effects he sought; he projects that he is doing something and the conversation is about him.”

It also strengthens the U.S. position vis-à-vis Mexico. Before sitting down to negotiate the future of security cooperation, it has already revealed a series of warnings about its neighbors. “When everything is on the table, nothing can be ruled out,” says Meschoulam. The message, according to the specialist, is that Sheinbaum’s government can accept the diagnosis and align itself, or accept the consequences.

The president has avoided talking about military intervention, but has insisted on her interest in maintaining collaboration, as long as Mexican sovereignty is not violated. With obvious disagreements, the negotiation will also take place while other areas of the relationship are under siege, amid threats of a tariff war and mass deportations, and in the face of the possibility of a radicalization of organized crime in retaliation.

Despite having approval ratings above 70% in polls, the violence crisis has been one of the most questioned points of the Sheinbaum government, which assumed office last October. The return of the Republican provoked a majority reaction of national unity, although the designation of the cartels has been embraced by some sectors of the opposition, amid notions that a change in security strategy is needed and attempts to gain political advantage. “The PRI does not negotiate with criminals or terrorists,” read an advertisement from the opposition party. It is a move that has brought them criticism, but also a sign of Trump’s political omnipresence.

“We believe that it does not help,” said Sheinbaum, who commissioned a team of specialists to analyze the implications. With antecedents such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the experts also doubt the effectiveness of the new paradigm on the ground, a shift after five decades of fighting drug trafficking. “The fight against terror and drugs is a war against ideas, against a market, and never in the history of humanity have we managed to destroy either an idea or a market,” concludes Hernández.

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