Trump vows to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist groups, launches major anti-drug campaign

President-elect Donald Trump again vowed that he will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations once he takes office on January 20, 2025. He also spoke about his administration waging a major anti-drug advertising campaign in an effort by the federal government to steer U.S. citizens away from narcotics use.

"Every foreign gang member will be expelled, and I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. We're going to do it immediately," Trump said during a conference of the conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona.

"And we'll unleash the full power of federal law enforcement, ICE, Border Patrol," the president-elect added before receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

He then spoke of the anti-drug campaign, which appears to be based in part on the 'Just Say No' initiative led by former Republican first lady Nancy Reagan in the 1980s to try to steer young Americans away from drug use.

"We're going to advertise how bad drugs are for you. They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth," Trump said, before adding that "a lot of money" will be put into the campaign but that, at the same time, it will be a "very small amount of money, relatively."

Trump's promise to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist groups is not new and, in fact, in 2019 the Republican president backtracked on it after former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked his then-US counterpart not to proceed with the appointments in exchange for working more strongly in the fight against drug trafficking.

Since the presidential campaign, Trump has adopted a tough anti-drug discourse, constantly echoing the gravity of the fentanyl crisis. He is also using the tariffs as a pressure mechanism against China, Canada and Mexico to help the United States stop the manufacture and trafficking of this powerful opioid, which has become a public health crisis in the country.

In fact, various studies estimate that between 50,000 and 60,000 Americans will die this year from synthetic opioid overdoses, most from the private use of powerful fentanyl or other related drugs.