Trump Can Fight Cartels by Halting Flow of U.S. Weapons to Mexico

The last appointment of the US State Department of five Mexican drug gangs as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOS) may be a prelude to taking US military measures against them, which was threatened by President Donald Trump first in November 2019. Now, with the applicable FTO names, Trump secretly directed the Ministry of Defense to develop plans to attack drug smuggling organizations, according to a report in New York Times.

While the terrorist appointment may provide legal authority to American military action in Mexico, it does nothing to reduce the opposition of the Mexican government to any such interference. Mexico lost 55 percent of its lands in front of the United States in the Mexican American War 1846-1848, so the idea of US military operations on Mexican lands excludes strong national hatred. Anything like this would greatly harm comprehensive cooperation in cooperation and bilateral relations in general.

The last appointment of the US State Department of five Mexican drug gangs as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOS) may be a prelude to taking US military measures against them, which was threatened by President Donald Trump first in November 2019. Now, with the applicable FTO names, Trump secretly directed the Ministry of Defense to develop plans to attack drug smuggling organizations, according to a report in New York Times.

While the terrorist appointment may provide legal authority to American military action in Mexico, it does nothing to reduce the opposition of the Mexican government to any such interference. Mexico lost 55 percent of its lands in front of the United States in the Mexican American War 1846-1848, so the idea of US military operations on Mexican lands excludes strong national hatred. Anything like this would greatly harm comprehensive cooperation in cooperation and bilateral relations in general.

However, there is a way in which by the assignment of the cartals as terrorist organizations can rather coordinate cooperation between the United States and Mexican in the war on drugs and make it real in the level of violence in Mexico. American arms dealers, straw buyers and smugglers who flooded Mexico with war weapons made in the United States to provide financial support for terrorism.

The “Iron River” illegally moves between 72000 and 258,000 weapons south of the border every year, giving Mexican drugs more than the Mexican police and nourishing the Carttals wars on its share in the market. The US Office for alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF) tracked 70.5 percent of the weapons that were recovered in the scenes of Mexican crime in 2024 (then presented to ATF for tracking) to licensed arms dealers in the United States. The matter gets worse. Despite efforts to enforce the United States, from 2019 to 2024, the number of weapons that followed to the United States increased by more than 25 percent.

In 2015, a Mexican military operation aimed at seizing the President of Jalisco Cartel (also known as Cártel de Jalisco Nueva GeneraCión) was thwarted when a military helicopter was dropped by a 50 -caliber weapon purchased from a gun in Portland, Oregon.

In 2019, a military patrol seized about 30 soldiers on Ov -Joseman, a leader of Cartel Sinalo after his father was imprisoned, Joaxin El Chapo Joseman, in the United States. But before the army was able to leave with their prisoners, dozens of gunmen armed with automatic weapons, including 0.50 -caliber machine guns, placed a siege of the city of Culiacán, preventing roads with burning vehicles and besieging the military unit. The soldiers were forced to escape to escape.

The loss of the military helicopter in the Galisco operation and fled from Josesan from the maximum, but the symbolic symbol of the uselessness of the attempt to win the military victory over the cartridges with the ability to reach war weapons. Since 2006, drug -related violence has been killed more than 480,000 Mexicans, and more than 120,000 people have been disappeared. Thousands of dead were the police and the military.

The Mexican government has long complained of Washington’s failure to do enough to stop the arms movement. In 2021, a civil lawsuit was filed against manufacturers and distributors of the main American weapons, and asked 10 billion dollars of damage and claimed that they were aware that their rifles were used in crimes in Mexico and did nothing to prevent them. In June, the United States Supreme Court claimed that it was excessively wide and argued that it was prevented by protecting legal trade in weapons in 2005, which protects weapons and distributors from responsibility for the damage caused by firearms.

So far, US enforcement procedures have failed to significantly reduce illegal arms trade. The estimates of size have been close to its peak over the past few years. Unable to lack financing, unable to make inspections of merchants’ records often enough to deter illegal sales, and the Trump administration suggested reducing its budget by 25 percent and laying 540 inspectors.

Now that the main Mexican carters have been set as FTOS, the law prohibiting material support for terrorists open new ways to close them in the flood of weapons. The ban, 18 USC § 2339b, dates back to 1996 and provides a criminal penalty of up to 20 years for “who intentionally provides financial support or resources of a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspiracy to do so.” Weapons are explicitly included in the definition of material support.

The Public Prosecutor does not need to prove that the defendants intend more terrorist activity – they only know that the support recipient was a dedicated terrorist organization. Weapons dealers will undoubtedly deny any such knowledge, but ATF tracking data shows that a relatively small number of independent merchants sell large quantities of weapons to individual buyers. It is possible to believe that these merchants are not aware that most of these sales are the purchases of straw designated for cartals. But this is a better issue of leaving the jury.

Criminal charges are not the only enforcement street that was opened by appointing the cartals as terrorists. In addition to the appointment of FTOS by the US Secretary of State, they were also appointed as international terrorists specially dedicated (SDGTS) under Executive Order 13224. This appointment gives the Treasury Department the authority to prohibit the assets of any person who has been found to “assist, care, provide, material, material, technical, financial or other services in support for the groups designed.

Unlike criminal judicial prosecutions, these financial penalties do not require evidence that does not exceed doubt in a legal court. The Minister of Treasury took a decision “in consultation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prosecutor” based on their ruling. The treasury does not have to punish a few independent arms dealers of the rest of them to receive a message that they could no longer act without a punishment as weapons from drug gangs.

Trump told a joint session of congress in March. Mexican traders as terrorists indicate that President is serious in making real progress in the drug war. In any war, the enemy’s logistical services are the key to victory. Politics is the only obstacle. The lounge of the weapon and its components at the Maga base suffers from allergies from any restrictions on firearms, so the sanctions on merchants to provide material support for terrorism will make the fanatics unrestricted weapons. But this may be the price that the president must pay in order to obtain his promise.

Military action alone will never solve the problem of drug use in the United States, but the Iron River Dam will be a big step forward. You will gain real gratitude from the Mexican government and deepen all other elements of cooperation in Counarnarcotics. It would give the Mexican and military police an opportunity to fight to suppress the cartals without the intervention of the United States. It will save the lives of countless innocent people who fell into drug wars in Mexico.