Designating cartels as foreign terrorist organisations

President Trump kicked off his second term in office with a flurry of Executive Orders geared towards his key campaign promise to ‘make America safe again’. Among these was EO 14157. Signed on ‘Day One’, 20 January 2025, this designated drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and a month later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced eight groups that fell under this designation: Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel) and Cárteles Unidos. This extraordinary move represents the first time that purely criminal groups – without ideological, political or religious objectives – have been added to the list of FTOs, and it should worry us.

The cartels are brutal and bloody organisations, controlling huge swathes of Mexican territory and responsible for the deaths of more than 30,000 people in the last decade. Few would baulk at measures aimed at ending their violent grip on the country. But the FTO designation confers counterterrorism powers on the Trump administration that could impact millions of people in the US and elsewhere.

Anti-terrorism provisions

The immediate effect of the FTO designation will be to freeze cartel assets in the US and trigger the ‘material support’ provisions within US anti-terrorism law, which potentially make anyone who has had financial dealings with an FTO – irrespective of intent – a ‘material supporter of terrorism’.

While the cartels are associated with drug trafficking, they have diversified their operations to include people trafficking and extorting money from the large numbers of migrants travelling north through Mexico. Even those who do not pay people smugglers to help them travel will often have to pay ransoms for their release as they make their way through cartel-controlled territory. Any financial dealings with FTOs potentially make migrants material supporters of terrorism, which carries heavy sentences (up to 20 years in prison) and bars them from claiming asylum in the US. Fears that anti-terrorism laws might be used in Trump’s anti-migrant campaign are far from unfounded, and individuals have previously been deported on the grounds of material support to FTO-listed groups, even when that support amounted to work undertaken after being kidnapped by guerrillas or paying their own hostage ransoms.

More widely, these provisions could also have a chilling effect on humanitarian and charity organisations providing aid to migrants outside and inside the US. To avoid accusations of ‘providing material support’, NGOs have been reluctant to deliver relief in regions controlled by FTOs. For example, aid to Sri Lankan victims of the 2004 tsunami was scaled back in areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers, and responses to the 2011 Somali famine were hampered by US counterterrorism reporting requirements to prevent aid from falling into the hands of Al-Shabaab. Within the US, charities aiding migrants who have had financial dealings with the cartels risk prosecution and having their assets frozen while they are investigated. This happened following the 9/11 attacks when American Muslim charities were shut down under the ‘material support’ provisions, based on evidence that often amounted merely to hearsay. Greater scrutiny of the hundreds of billions of dollars in annual immigrant remittances from the US to Latin America and the Caribbean will also impact the lives of millions, as fewer companies will be willing to risk facilitating transactions, and higher costs will effectively act as a tax on migrants and their families.

The FTO designation also opens the possibility that crimes committed on the border will be counted as terrorism offences. This would mean a surge of ‘terrorism’ on the border, strengthening Trump’s claims that the ‘national emergency’ requires a national security response. An FTO designation doesn’t bring with it any extra military powers; that would require an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from Congress. But Trump’s repeated references to the situation on the border as an ‘invasion’ indicate that the administration might be gearing up for military action, and the designation of criminal organisations as terrorists would ease the path for public acceptance of such measures.

Stretching the definition of terrorism

Beyond these immediate impacts, this loosening of the definition of terrorism has broader and more worrying implications. Terrorism is famously difficult to define, but its key distinguishing feature rests on the difference between political violence and criminal violence. Political violence is committed to further a political, religious or ideological objective, while criminal violence is undertaken for financial or personal gain.

The danger of designating purely criminal groups as terrorists lies in the precedent set. Trump has labelled his ideological and political enemies as ‘terrorists’ before, including Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors and anti-fascists. As the definition of terrorism is stretched, there is the potential for more activity to fall within the scope of counterterrorism powers. We have seen this in recent weeks, with pro-Palestine activists labelled terrorists and both FBI Director Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming that vandalism against Tesla properties amounts to ‘domestic terrorism’.

Since the Executive Order targets the ‘bad guys’, it would be easy enough to overlook the implications of this move. But history has shown that counterterrorism measures designed to manage one ‘dangerous outgroup’ often expand to a much broader population. If ideological motivation is no longer relevant to a terrorist designation, then potentially any activity could fall under the remit of counterterrorism, and any outgroup could find itself targeted. And in Trump’s America – where the ‘enemy within’ is believed to lurk everywhere – a deeply dangerous precedent has been set.

Leonie B. Jackson is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Northumbria University.

What Is Counterterrorism For? by Leonie Jackson is available on Bristol University Press for £8.99 here.

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