Trump tells military to target Latin American drug cartels, source says

Washington — President Trump has directed the military to target drug cartels in Latin America, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News.

It’s not clear if or when the military could take action.

The news was first reported by The New York Times.

Since returning to the White House for a second term, Mr. Trump has undertaken efforts to target drug cartels in Latin America, which he has said are behind the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs across the southern border and into the U.S.

Mr. Trump signed an executive order at the start of his second administration that directed the State Department to designate cartels and transnational gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. The State Department in February announced the designation for eight gangs, including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. It has since added two Haitian gangs and the Houthis in Yemen to the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The Treasury Department has also sanctioned the Cartel de los Soles, also known as the Cartel of the Sun, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, it announced last month. The Trump administration said the Venezuela-based group is led by President Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials and “provides material support to foreign terrorist organizations threatening the peace and security” of the U.S. The U.S. doubled the award for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million on Thursday.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil called the award “pathetic” and “crude political propaganda.”

House and Senate Democrats have urged the Trump administration to use the foreign terrorist designation to take action to curb the flow of U.S.-made guns across the southern border by disrupting cartels’ financial networks and imposing harsher penalties on entities that provide material support to them. 

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment in May that accused an alleged Mexican cartel member of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization by providing grenades to a cartel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told EWTN, a Catholic television network, on Thursday that the foreign terrorist organization designation gives the U.S. government more legal authorities to target cartels.

“It’s no longer a law enforcement issue,” he said. “It becomes a national security issue.”

Rubio later added that the designation “allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power — intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever — to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it.”

Mr. Trump has also sought to use the military to help implement his immigration agenda, with more than 10,000 service members sent to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the Defense Department. The Pentagon also created three National Defense Areas in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and are treated as extensions of military bases. U.S.Northern Command said the areas aim to enhance border security operations.

In June, Mr. Trump also directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to mobilize roughly 4,000 members of California’s National Guard to Los Angeles, over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to assist with immigration enforcement actions. About 700 active-duty Marines were also deployed to California’s largest city.