The Department of Justice has identified Chinese nationals and companies that have been directly aiding the Mexican drug cartels. This raises troubling questions, especially if the cartels are designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
One of the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 is called “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” This order was a presidential direction to add the Mexican drug cartels to the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The scourge of fentanyl can be traced directly to the cartels and is killing thousands of Americans per month. Combined drug overdoses in the United States leave about 120,000 people dead per year. At this rate, if no action is taken to address it, the number of overdoses will surpass the number of Americans killed in World War II—407,000—within a couple of years.
In the executive order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was given the lead to develop the final list of groups to be designated as terrorist groups. The State Department is reported to have created a tentative list of eight groups to be placed on the formal terrorist organization list.
On “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast on Jan. 30, Rubio said Mexico has significant amounts of ungoverned territory.
“They’re controlled by drug cartels,” he said. “They are the most powerful force on the ground, and they are plowing into the United States. … They’re facilitating illegal migration, but they are also bringing in fentanyl and deadly drugs to our country.
“That’s a national security threat, and that needs to stop.”
CCP’s ‘Unrestricted Warfare’
In April 2023, a U.S. court named four Chinese nationals who had allegedly collaborated with Mexican cartels on fentanyl production. Kun Jiang, Yonghao Wu, Yaqin Wu, and Huatao Yao were identified as defendants and the Chinese suppliers of fentanyl precursors to the cartels in Mexico.
They sourced the precursor chemicals from their companies’ factories in China and delivered these chemicals to cartels in Mexico with the full knowledge that the intent was to send the fentanyl in distributable form directly into the United States, according to prosecutors.
US Special Forces Train Mexican Marines
U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachments from the 7th Special Forces Group have arrived in Mexico to begin the Foreign Internal Defense (FID) training program of Mexican Marines.
According to Sen. Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, president of the Mexican Senate’s Naval Ministry Commission, the Mexican Senate has approved the entry of members of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) into the country starting this week, and the training is to take place from Feb. 17 to March 30 at the Luis Carpizo naval facility in the state of Campeche. The United States is to train the Mexican Navy’s Infantería de Marina (marine infantry) in conventional and unconventional combat techniques.
This is a very significant event and a milestone. This is the first instance of publicly acknowledged Special Operations training focused on tactics, techniques, and procedures that will help the Mexican Marines take on the cartels. Even more interesting, there have been reports of U.S. spy aircraft flying off the west coast of Mexico.
Authorization for Use of Military Force
The process to formally designate the Mexican drug cartels (and other groups such as Tren de Aragua and MS-13) as terrorist organizations is a significant step on the journey to taking decisive military action inside of Mexico against the leadership, training, and logistics facilities of the cartels and their production of fentanyl.
Once Congress passes an AUMF, the drug cartels and those supporting, enabling, or working with the cartels could also be potential targets of the AUMF.
All viewpoints are personal and do not reflect the viewpoints of any organization.
This article first appeared in Epoch Times and was reprinted with permission, with minor editorial adjustments for clarity and formatting.
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