Per The New York Times reporting, President Trump has issued a new directive authorizing the Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct direct military operations against select Latin American drug cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). This represents a major escalation in the administration’s counter-cartel posture, moving beyond law enforcement and intelligence support to offensive kinetic missions.
The directive, according to people familiar with the matter, provides legal cover for potential direct U.S. military operations at sea and on foreign soil, bypassing the traditional law enforcement framework.
“It signals Mr. Trump’s continued willingness to use military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a law enforcement responsibility to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs,” The New York Times wrote in the report.
The move follows the deployment of active-duty and National Guard troops along the southern border, expanding surveillance via reconnaissance aircraft, and designating multiple cartels and gangs as FTOs, including Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, which the administration alleges is run by Nicolás Maduro. On Thursday, the U.S. increased its bounty on Maduro’s capture to $50 million.
Recently, the Treasury Department accused Cartel de los Soles of providing material support to Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. Both cartels have been designated as FTOs, which the Treasury said are “threatening the peace and security of the United States.”
Trump administration lawyers, including the new Pentagon general counsel and head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, are expected to face early tests in determining what operations are legally permissible.
NYT noted, “Trump’s new directive appears to envision a different approach, focused on U.S. forces directly capturing or killing people involved in the drug trade.”
Earlier this year, we provided readers with the understanding that the groundwork was being laid for these types of authorizations, including capture/kill missions, maritime interdictions, and cross-border SOF raids against high-value targets:
Trump’s target of cartels is an initiative that appears nested within a broader strategic framework referred to as “Hemispheric Defense,” aimed at securing the Western Hemisphere against transnational criminal gangs and Beijing.
The primary objective will be to fracture cartel command-and-control nodes to disrupt fentanyl trafficking networks, particularly those dependent on precursor chemical shipments originating from China (hybrid warfare) that kill 100,000 Americans every year. It’s likely that before the kinetic action begins, the U.S. Treasury will exert more financial pressure on these cartels to disrupt their financial networks.
If implemented, this directive marks a major doctrinal shift for the U.S. to secure the Western Hemisphere in a world fracturing into a dangerous bipolar state. There are risks that this action could spark diplomatic fallout with Mexico and other surrounding countries.
Another risk is that cartels may retaliate with asymmetric attacks targeting U.S. personnel, diplomatic buildings, or infrastructure. What’s worse is that the Biden-Harris regime of far-left globalists flooded the nation with cartel members. There is a coming storm.
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