President Trump outlined how he will designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and use the U.S. military to combat them as necessary. You can watch his announcement here.

Our Take:

• The record number of drug overdose deaths — more than 107,000 in 2021 — requires drastic solutions that Biden is unwilling to take. The drug cartels deserve to be destroyed like ISIS as President Trump said in his Thursday video.
• The Mexican drug cartels function like terrorist groups. They even defeated the Mexican military before in battle. President Trump recognizes the threat they pose to national security.
• Biden does not take the drug crisis seriously. The Border Patrol Union warned that Biden’s plan to end Title 42 gives the cartels “complete control.”

The Background: 

President Donald Trump laid out several proposals to combat the cartels in his Thursday video. The announcement comes while violence erupted in the Mexico city of Culiacan after Mexican authorities arrested drug cartel leader Ovidio Guzman — the son of El Chapo.

“Fentanyl, heroin, meth, and other lethal drugs are pouring across our wide-open border stealing hundreds of thousands of beautiful American lives,” Trump said Thursday. “The drug cartels are waging war on America, and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels.  In this war, Joe Biden has sided against the United States and with the cartels.”

President Trump’s proposed policies include:

• Deploying all necessary military assets to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels. “We will guarantee that the waters of the Western Hemisphere are not used to traffic illicit drugs to our country.”
• Ordering the Department of Defense to use special operations, cyber warfare, and other methods to “inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
• Designating the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
• Severing the drug cartels’ access to global financial systems.
• Creating a partnership with neighboring governments in the region to combat the cartels.
  • President Trump noted, “Either we will get the full cooperation of other governments to stop this menace, or we will expose every bribe, every kickback, every payoff, and every bit of corruption that is allowing the cartels to preserve their brutal reign.”
• Calling on Congress to make sure drug traffickers receive the death penalty.

President Donald J. Trump Announces Plan to Destroy the Drug Cartels

Mar-a-Lago, FL – As Joe Biden prepares to make his first-ever trip to the southern border that he deliberately erased, President Trump announced that when he is president again, it will be the official policy of the United States to take down the drug cartels just as we took down ISIS.

Watch the video announcement

“The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” President Trump said. “The drug cartels and their allies in the Biden administration have the blood of countless millions on their hands. Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed. When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”

President Donald J. Trump’s Plan to Destroy the Drug Cartels

“The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels.” – Donald J. Trump

President Trump laid out an aggressive plan to dismantle the criminal trafficking networks that are destroying lives and communities on both sides of the border.

TRUMP ACTION PLAN TO DESTROY THE DRUG CARTELS:

• Restore all Trump border policies and fully secure the border
• Deploy all necessary military assets, including the U.S. Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels, to ensure they cannot use our region’s waters to traffic illicit drugs to the U.S.
• Order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations
• Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
• Cut off the cartels’ access to the global financial system
• Get full cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks
• Ask Congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can receive the Death Penalty

BIDEN’S DEADLY DESTRUCTION OF OUR BORDER: Joe Biden has spent the last two years dismantling the southern border. Biden’s Open Borders policies are killing innocent Americans, ravaging American communities, enriching the cartels, and destabilizing large parts of Mexico and Latin America.

• Since Joe Biden took office, an estimated 200,000+ Americans have died from drug overdoses.
• Hundreds of thousands of pounds of ultra-lethal fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine, and other illicit narcotics are pouring across our wide-open border and into American communities. Federal officials estimate that they only seize up to 10% of these drugs.
  • Enough fentanyl was seized at the border last year to kill every single American.
• Biden inherited the strongest border in U.S. history and turned it into the greatest border disaster in the history of the world.
• Biden stopped wall construction, gutted Remain in Mexico, ripped up asylum cooperation agreements, imposed catch-and-release across the entire southern border, slandered and attacked border agents, announced the cancelation of Title 42, and effectively abolished interior enforcement.
• Drug cartels and human smugglers have seen their revenue skyrocket by an estimated 2,500%, netting $13 billion this year. Trafficking illegal alien migrants is now a major source of revenue for the drug cartels.
• Fueled in major part by Biden’s border disaster, the number of Americans killed due to fentanyl increased by 94% since 2019, and fentanyl poisoning has become the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

BIDEN’S PRO-CARTEL BORDER POLICIES ARE ALSO DEVASTATING MEXICO:

• Reports of torture in Mexico have doubled, and reports of violence by criminal groups against authorities or large crowds rose 756% in the first half of 2022 compared to the previous year.
• In Mexico, over 100,000 civilians are missing or murdered at the hands of the cartels, with an average of 25 Mexican citizens disappearing every day.
• Cartels have destabilized Mexico by bribing officials at all levels of government, assassinating journalists and public servants, and mass murdering political candidates.
• Biden’s actions are pushing vulnerable migrant women and children into the arms of the most vicious, violent, and predatory criminal networks on earth.
• Arrests for human smuggling increased by 82% since 2014, and an estimated 60% of unaccompanied Latin American children who attempt to cross the border are captured by cartels and abused in child pornography or drug trafficking.

BOTTOM LINE: Biden has destroyed the border—President Trump will destroy the cartels.