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The move against a half-dozen organizations followed an executive order from President Trump that said the United States would ensure their “total elimination.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently returned from his first official trip abroad, to five countries in Latin America. He spoke with counterparts about migration and security issues on his travels, though he did not visit Mexico. Credit… Nathalia Angarita for The New York Times Published Feb. 12, 2025 Updated Feb. 13, 2025, 3:13 p.m. ET The Trump administration plans to designate more than a half-dozen criminal groups with roots in Latin America as foreign terrorist organizations, said six U.S. officials with knowledge of the imminent action.
The move, to be carried out by the State Department, follows an executive order President Trump signed on Jan. 20 calling for a crackdown on major cartels. The designation is expected to be applied to eight groups, said three of the officials, though the list could change before a public announcement. The officials who spoke for this article did so on the condition of anonymity to talk about an action that has not been made public yet.
The executive order called for the designations, saying the cartels “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime” and that the United States would “ensure the total elimination” of the groups.
Mr. Trump gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio two weeks to make the designations in consultation with several other cabinet members. The criminal groups and their members could be labeled foreign terrorist organizations or specially designated global terrorists, according to the order. The designations mean the U.S. government can impose broad economic sanctions on the groups and on people or entities linked to them.
The executive order referred in general to cartels in Mexico. It also specifically named Tren de Aragua, a group with roots in Venezuela, and Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang founded by Salvadoran immigrants in the United States that plays a lesser role in the transnational drug trade.
Besides those two groups, the State Department plans to designate six Mexican cartels: the Sinaloa cartel, Jalisco New Generation cartel, the Northeast cartel, the Michoacán family, the United cartels and the Cartel del Golfo, according to U.S. officials.
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