Trump Secretly Ordered Military to Take On Cartels: Report
President Trump has quietly authorized the U.S. military to use force against Latin American drug cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations, according to Friday reports.
The directive marks Trump’s most aggressive step yet against gangs trafficking drugs such as fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border—an area previously handled primarily by federal law enforcement.
First reported Friday by The New York Times, the order grants U.S. forces formal authority to take action against cartels both on land and at sea.
“The president is determined to not just dismantle – but completely destroy – [Venezuelan dictator Nicolas] Maduro’s Cartel de Los Soles and obliterate their operations in the Western Hemisphere,” a source close to the White House said.
The State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations engaged in drug trafficking includes Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, the Cartel de Los Soles, and the El Salvador-based Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13.
Trump openly floated the idea during the 2024 campaign of authorizing military action against drug cartels operating inside Mexico, the New York Post reported.
Since returning to office, he has increased tariffs on Canada and Mexico, citing their failure to curb drug and human smuggling into the United States, and has directed immigration authorities to target new arrivals with suspected gang affiliations.
Trump has also welcomed families affected by gang violence to the White House and pledged to seize cartel assets and redirect them to families impacted by what he calls “migrant crime.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in power since 2013, has been a key focus of the administration’s efforts, The Post added.
On Thursday, the Justice and State Departments announced a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest on charges of violating U.S. drug trafficking laws.
The anti-cartel campaign is being coordinated across multiple agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of the Treasury, a source said.
“President Trump’s top priority is protecting the homeland, which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations,” deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.
Earlier this week, reports said that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently arrested a known El Salvadoran fugitive who had a warrant for his arrest issued in his home country.
Cristian Alberto Rivas-Escalante, 29, was picked up at a work site on Marco Island, Fla., in mid-June, reports said. He is one of thousands of criminal aliens being targeted for removal from the country under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation directive.
“(ICE) came to the Island to locate and arrest an individual with an outstanding fugitive warrant. Contrary to some concerns, this was not an immigration raid,” David Ennis, a captain with the Marco Island Police Department (MIPD), noted in an email statement to media and posted on the department’s social media accounts.
“Agents were specifically focused on locating one individual who was working in the area due to his past criminal activity,” Ennis added.
Rivas-Escalante was living in Southwest Florida, off the island somewhere, according to Mike Meares, ICE public affairs officer in Tampa in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, Enforcement and Removal Operations.
He entered the United States illegally in 2015 and is wanted in his home country of El Salvador, according to Meares, who was in Marco Island at the time of the arrest. Classified as a “criminal alien,” Rivas-Escalante is identified as an associate of the 18th Street Gang.
The 18th Street Gang is a known rival of MS-13, which the U.S. Department of State officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization on February 20. MS-13 was originally formed in Los Angeles and expanded rapidly throughout Central America after many of its members were deported, the Naples Daily News reported.
