Mexican drug cartels to be added to foreign terrorist organization list

Mexico's major drug trafficking cartels will be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. These are the main Mexican gangs dedicated to drug trafficking and which maintain a structure of power and oppression parallel to the Mexican state in several regions of the country.

The information was advanced by The New York Times, which said it had access to a State Department draft announcing the new designation for these criminal organizations. According to these sources, also reviewed by Breitbart, the order will become effective on Feb. 19.

The criminal organizations affected are the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel faction of Los Zetas, Carteles Unidos and the Familia Michoacana. The designations allow the federal government to impose broad economic sanctions on the groups and individuals or entities linked to them.

They join Tren de Aragua and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), which were declared terrorist organizations by order of President Donald Trump late last January.

According to New York Times sources, the new order justifies the designations because the cartels "constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime" and that the United States will "ensure the total elimination" of the groups.

The designation is part of the new administration's effort to control drug trafficking across the southern border and that it poses a danger to the public health of the country. The federal government has already gotten Mexico more involved in the southern border by leveraging threats of tariffs.

Following this, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went on a tour to meet with the governments of several Latin American countries. Among them was Panama, which controls the Darién Gap, a key region not only for immigration, but also for drug trafficking routes.