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OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:08 PM – Friday, August 8, 2025
President Donald Trump has authorized U.S. military action against certain Latin American drug cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations. This directive allows U.S. forces to target these groups both on land and at sea — escalating the United States’ approach to combating drug trafficking.
According to a report first shared by The New York Times, the authorization would give U.S. forces permission to engage a number of Latin American cartels, who traffic drugs like fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“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 New York Post reported.
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The effort is being coordinated among several departments, including the Department of Defense (DoD), the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Treasury, according to a source who reached out to the press.
“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 to Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Friday that the U.S. military will not be invading Mexican territory in response to suggestions that Washington, D.C., would take action against the cartels in her country.
“It has nothing to do with Mexican territory,” she said. “It has to do with their country. It does not involve our territory.”
However, as of now, there is no public statement from President Trump confirming or addressing Sheinbaum’s recent remarks that the U.S. military will not intervene in Mexico.
The U.S. president has also previously advocated employing military force against drug cartels in an effort to halt the flow of illicit drugs and illegal immigration coming from across the Southern Border. He has sanctioned senior members of the Cartel del Noreste, one of Mexico’s most dangerous drug trafficking gangs and a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
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