Trump Declares the Cartels "Terrorists" [FEATURE]

On January 20, the first day of the new administration, President Trump issued a slew of executive orders, the first in an avalanche of actions from the White House that have come so fast and furious that it is difficult to keep up. Almost lost in the torrent was a move that addressed Trump's campaign promises on fentanyl and immigration, an executive order designating "cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations."

 

Faced with the evident failure of drug prohibition, especially regarding fentanyl, the Trump White House is not radically rethinking drug policy but instead doubling down with an even tougher approach to the intractable problem.  But in doing so, it blurs the line between crime and terrorism, opens the door to lethal US "anti-terror" operations inside Mexico (the CIA is already flying surveillance drone missions aimed at cartels there), jeopardizes relations with Mexico and other Latin American countries, and endangers immigrants who may have been coerced into using cartel services to get across the border, thus exposing them to charges of "providing material support for terrorism."

Those cartels "constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime," the order reads, citing a "convergence between themselves and a range of extra-hemispheric actors, from designated foreign-terror organizations to antagonistic foreign governments; complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare; and infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere."

And just to make sure we get the point, the order blames the cartels—not a century-long policy of drug prohibition—for "destabilize[ing] countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flood[ing] the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs."

The order declared a "national emergency" under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 "to deal with these threats."

The January 20 order was curious in that it did not designate any particular organizations, only "the Cartels," in itself a common misnomer for (mostly) Mexican illegal drug trafficking organizations since they are not entities engaged in collusive price-fixing but violent rivals. It did, however, mention two other groups, the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua (TdA), and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), founded by the children of Salvadoran refugees from the 1980s US-financed civil war who learned their gang-banging skills on the streets of Los Angeles. Those groups "pose similar threats to the United States" as the cartels, the executive order proclaims. 

The omission on particulars about which groups were the cartels in question was rectified two weeks later when the New York Times reported that the State Department would designate the following drug trafficking groups as foreign terrorist organizations: Mexico's Sinaloa, Familia Michoacana, Jalisco New Generation, Northeast, and United cartels; Colombia's Clan del Golfo, and the previously mentioned Venezuelan Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha. 

The designations have yet to be formally announced, but the Times reported that the State Department has told congressional committees about the forthcoming announcement, which could come as early as this week. 

Designating the drug trafficking organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) allows the US government to bring to bear against the cartels the same tools used to combat Al Qaeda and ISIS: financial sanctions, expanded intelligence operations (see the CIA drones above), and even direct military action since FTO designees are considered enemy combatants. 

The move has been a fever dream of congressional GOP chest-thumpers, who for the past few years have regularly called for it, sponsoring bills such as the Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act (HR 1564). But those bills failed to pass, perhaps because of the dangers of unleashing the full power of the US to take action not in lawless failed states in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa but in Mexico or Colombia, states whose governments take great umbrage with any implication they do not control their national territory and great pride in their national sovereignty. 

But it is drawing criticism from across the political spectrum. Writing for the libertarian Cato Institute, where he is vice president for economic and social policy studies, Alex Nowrasteh notes that cartels are not terrorist organizations in any normal sense of the phrase: "Drug cartels are vicious criminals, but they are profit-seeking criminals who are not motivated by political, economic, religious, or other social goals. There is a tendency to label the worst criminals as terrorists because crimes terrorize. That feeling is understandable, but that’s not the purpose of the anti-terrorism laws, and that’s certainly not consistent with any reasonable understanding of the real terrorist threat (small as it is).

"Congress has given the president too much authority to prosecute a war on terrorism without sufficient oversight by the legislature and the courts," Nowrasteh continues. "By designating drug cartels as FTOs, the Trump administration unlocks new powers for itself, creates a new media narrative that could fool many [describing cartel violence as "terrorist attacks], and reinforces the rest of its anti-immigration and border enforcement agenda."

Meanwhile, nonresident fellow in Drug Policy and Mexico Studies at the University of Houston's Baker Institute Gary Hale warns that the FTO designation is "a double-edged that will have limited impact on the mayhem caused by those organized criminal groups and will likely have negative effects on trade, commerce and other crucial aspects of the US–Mexico relationship. The gains that Trump has made through Mexico’s cooperation toward reducing the number of migrants reaching the U.S. southern border could also suffer significantly should US forces intervene in any manner in Mexico, including a surgical attack against any one member of a cartel or anyone of the several cartels that are operating throughout Mexican territory."

Citing the US military raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hale writes that "the FTO designation of Mexican targets could just as easily lead to similar unilateral action inside Mexico by US special operations forces, drone attacks, or other specific and limited military action against individual Mexican criminals, their organizations or their infrastructure — exponentially more provocative acts than seizing money from bank accounts.

"Unlike OBL and Al Qaeda, many more individuals in Mexico could end up listed as FTOs and could be killed by the US for the terroristic actions they commit in Mexico, albeit mostly against Mexicans," Hale continues. "Thus, if a Mexican criminal is designated as an enemy combatant as a result of an FTO designation, that civilian could be subject to execution through U.S. military action, an act of war in which a person is summarily killed without benefit of a full and fair trial. That is hardly the "American Way.'" 

Mexican criminals should be treated as criminals and prosecuted under judicial process in Mexico or the US " and not mislabeled as military combatants for political purposes," Hale argues. Instead, the US should increase assistance to Mexico to strengthen its law enforcement, intelligence, and judiciary.

And Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program managing director Rachel Levinson-Waldman warns that the "dangerous sweep" of Trump's plan "could harm large numbers of people with no connection to drug trafficking, let alone terrorism." 

Asylum seekers who had to pay money to cartels to move north toward the border could be charged with "material support for terrorism," she writes, warning that the FTO designation "could sweep in a range of activity that has nothing to do with furthering terrorist activity or even the cartel’s activities, and everything to do with targeting the most vulnerable."

Churches, synagogues, and food banks that provide services to migrant communities could also be at risk, given the broad language of the FT. O designation. If a migrant availing himself of their support was smuggled across the border, "the organization may be vulnerable to prosecution or to having their assets frozen while an investigation is underway, effectively starving them of resources."

Even American drug users "could end up buying from a member of a 'foreign terrorist organization,' exposing them to material support prosecution. In light of the racial disparities in drug enforcement, these prosecutions are likely to disproportionately impact Black and Brown Americans," she writes. 

The Trump administration looks tough going after "terrorists," but the downsides, from serious conflict with Mexico to the criminalization of migrants and homegrown drug users could be devastating. It's better that the Trump administration charge at windmills in Greenland than try to seriously implement a "war on terror" on the people who supply the drugs we demand.